Based on my book (Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care
Costs So Much) , produced by Academy-Award winning documentary
film-maker  Alex Gibney (best known for “Enron: The Smartest Guys In
the Room”), a free streaming video of the 90-minute documentary is available throughout the month of November.

 Go to www.moneydrivenmedicine.org,
see “Watch-In for America’s health in the upper-right hand corner,
scroll down a few inches to “To learn more and participate in the
Watch-In click here.”  If you would like to buy the DVD, It’s now available for home use at an affordable price. Go to www.moneydrivenmedicine.org
and on the left hand side of the page, see “Buy, rent, screen” or call
877-811-7495.  Special prices for high schools and libraries as well as
hospitals and universities.

(Neither I nor The Century Foundation makes any profit on these sales. The film’s distributor, California Newsreel is also a non-profit. )

(We Should Not Scoff at the Medicare Pilot Programs in Reform Legislation)

I urge everyone to read this story by David Leonhardt in this Sunday’s (November 8) New York Times.  (Thanks to HealthBeat reader Lisa Lindel for spotting it. )
Leonhardt
profiles Intermountain Healthcare, a network of hospitals and clinics
in Utah and Idaho that President Obama and others have described as a
model for health reform.

Leonhardt concludes:

“If
you simply looked at Intermountain’s overall results — the good
outcomes and low costs — you might be tempted to dismiss them as a
product of the environment. Utah has the youngest population of
any state, as well one of the lowest rates of alcohol and tobacco use.
More than half of the state’s residents are Mormons. This homogeneity
creates a noticeable sense of community, even a sense of mission, among
many Intermountain doctors and nurses.

Continue reading →

Over at the New America Foundation, blogger Joanne Kenen elaborates on how the House and Senate Finance bills can lead to providing better end-of-life care.  As As Kenen points out, these proposals are all about giving people choices—including the parents of children who are seriously ill. Finally, these proposals would reduce health care costs by making sure that people who don’t want to die in an ICU don’t wind up there by default.

“After all the sound and fury of last August, we're pleasantly surprised that the right hasn't risen again with all sorts of horror stories about the resurrection, so to speak, of the "death panels." Maybe because all that fear-mongering was finally discredited. Maybe we are finally getting just a little bit smarter.
The inevitable focus on the politics of health reform, and the disproportionate amount of attention paid to the public plan, sometimes obscures the many ways that the House and the Senate health plans are ambitious. Not perfect. Ambitious. I've heard experts, people I like and respect, say the legislation does "nothing" to advance the cause of quality of end of life care in America. They are wrong. The House and Senate bill each contain measures that would advance that cause — not fix it completely, far from it, but they will take us important steps in the right direction. It's too soon to know which of these measures – if any — will survive a final melding of House and Senate legislation. But let's look at them here because, except for the end of life consults which got way too much of the wrong kind of attention, they haven't gotten adequate attention. In an accompanying guest post. Dr. Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, talks about what these changes can mean for his patients and their families.

Continue reading →

Many reformers have been uncertain as
to whether they could rely on the Association of Retired Persons (AARP)
to support progressive health care reform.  After all, AARP has close ties to the insurance industry.

But
this evening, the Associated Press (AP) reported that “In a coup for
House Democrats, AARP will endorse sweeping health care overhaul
legislation headed for a history-making floor vote

“An
announcement from the 40-million member group is expected Thursday
[tomorrow], said officials with knowledge of the group's decision. They
spoke on condition of anonymity because the endorsement is not official
yet.

Continue reading →

Conservatives have argued that abortion has no place in a health care bill—I couldn’t agree more (although for completely different reasons…). In fact, I think individual insurers should be the ones to decide whether or not it makes sense for them to offer the benefit to women. We are wasting far too much time and political capital on an issue that has little to do with the overall goals of reform.

Continue reading →

What Has Been Accomplished; What Still Must Be Done

These days, many progressives are expressing deep disappointment with the health reform legislation now moving through Congress. Some suggest that some legislators made deals with lobbyists and let them write the bills. Others complain that both the subsidies and the penalties are too low. Still others don’t like the fact that states can “opt out” of the public insurance option, and decide not to offer Medicare E. Finally, many ask: “Why can’t everyone sign on for the public plan in 2013? Why do we have to wait until 2013? Why can’t they roll out universal coverage next year?”

Normally, I would be among the first to critique the bills. By temperament and training, I’m both a skeptic and a critic.

Continue reading →