USA Today (2/11, Jackson) reports, "President Obama said Tuesday that he will consider any Republican healthcare ideas, as long as the ideas address the goals contained in the Democratic plans already passed by the House and Senate." But, "Republicans urged Obama to scrap the healthcare bills and start from scratch before a bipartisan summit on the subject to be held Feb. 25." Obama said he would start "from scratch in the sense that I will be open to any ideas that help promote these goals."
Rove lays out GOP strategy ahead of White House healthcare summit. Karl Rove, in his column for the Wall Street Journal, urges Congressional Republicans to accept President Obama's invitation to a White house summit on healthcare reform. Rove advises the Republicans to tout conservative healthcare reform alternatives, including tort reform, tax breaks and an interstate health insurance market. Rove also says the meeting will present an opportunity for Republicans to criticize what he describes as $500 billion in Medicare cuts, as well as tax hikes on individuals and portions of the healthcare industry.
Pelosi says healthcare reform is "very doable." Roll Call (2/11, Dennis, subscription required) reports on an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in which she is said to put "the blame on Republicans for a lack of bipartisanship in Congress" and urges the Senate to recall that "a constitutional majority is 51 votes." While, "Pelosi stopped short of saying the filibuster should be done away with altogether...she used some of her bluntest language yet to defend the use of reconciliation as something that has been used with regularity by Republican and Democratic presidents alike." Pelosi said getting the healthcare bill through is "very doable."
Health cost, effectiveness studies seen as having little lasting effect.
The Wall Street Journal (2/11, Winstein, subscription required) reports on the difficulties faced by efforts to determine how to offer the most effective care for the lowest cost. The article focuses on the Courage study that found that stents generally offered no benefit beyond what would be obtained through medication for patients with chronic chest pain. The article argues that without changes to insurance practices, it is unlikely that such studies would have much effect, though studies that promote new treatments often are successful. The Courage study was called a "blockbuster" by then chairman of the American College of Cardiology, Steven Nissen, but it is said not to have had many lasting effects. The American College of Cardiology is cited for data that the use of the drugs the study found effective for stent patients has not changed much as a result of the study.
Reforms focusing on how providers are paid said to be necessary. CNN (2/11, Hyde, Griffin) reports, "Even as the healthcare debate turns to blood sport in Washington, some analysts say the debate is ignoring one of the leading causes of rising costs: the way healthcare providers are paid." Dr. Elliott Fisher of Dartmouth University is cited saying that most "of the US health system is paid simply for each service, regardless of the results of that service." CNN focuses on a study regarding McAllen, Texas, where people are said to be receiving much more medical care than average without visible benefit.
Massachusetts bill would allow insurance commissioner to cap healthcare price increases.
The Boston Globe (2/11, Lazar, Levenson, Weisman) reports that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) filed a bill "yesterday [that] proposes to give the insurance commissioner the power to essentially cap healthcare price increases." Under the bill, the rates "hospitals and other health providers charge insurers would be 'presumptively disapproved as excessive' if they increased faster than the level of medical inflation," and for "health insurance plans sold to employers with 50 or fewer workers, premium increases that exceed one and a half times the level of medical inflation would be considered excessive and could be turned down." For insurance companies, the bill would "impose a two-year moratorium on lawmakers' mandating any new health benefits that must be covered by insurance plans." Reaction is said to be "mixed, with small business groups expressing cautious optimism, insurers saying the measures do not go far enough, and healthcare providers worrying that smaller hospitals could be disproportionately harmed and that some might have to lay off caregivers."
The Boston Herald (2/11, Fitzgerald, Grillo) reports, "The proposal, which would effectively put premium rates under temporary government supervision, was harshly criticized yesterday by the insurance industry as an unworkable idea that will fail." In addition, "Patrick's new plan was rich in irony, considering his administration only recently deregulated auto-insurance rates. The new rate-review process also partially reverses, at least temporarily, reforms in the 1990s that deregulated the health-pricing system in Massachusetts."
