TOPICS
Reform Updates |
Ground rules
for Debates |
Recognizing Misinformation |
Background Data |
Expert Perspectives NEJM
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PubMed -
Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007:
Results of a National Study
"62.1% of all
bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; ... Most
medical debtors were well educated, owned homes,
and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters
had health insurance. "
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About
the
Affordable
Care Act
the Full Law
by Section
healthcare.gov
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Insuring Your Health:
Looking At The Changes 2011 Brings
http://bit.ly/ibyhZL
Michelle Andrews speaks
with KFF's Jackie Judd about changes in lifetime insurance limits,
keeping children insured, the new high-risk pools.
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Economic Rationale
for Reform:
1) Rosenbaum, J.D., and Gruber, Ph.D. write:
"… the uninsured consume more than $50 billion in
uncompensated care, the costs
of which are passed through health care institutions to
insured Americans.
Moreover, medical expenses not covered by insurance are
one of the leading
causes of bankruptcy in the United States ...
Source: NEJM, 2010, Buying Health Care, the Individual
Mandate, and the
Constitution:
http://bit.ly/9FElMG
2) CBO Publications Related to Health Care
Legislation, 2009-2010
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12033/12-23-SelectedHealthcarePublications.pdf
CBO Estimated Budgetary Impact of the
Healthcare Legislation
"CBO and JCT estimate that enacting both
pieces of legislation—H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation
proposal—would produce a net reduction in federal
deficits of $143 billion over the 2010–2019
period as result of changes in direct spending and
revenues (see Table 1). That figure comprises $124
billion in net reductions deriving from the health care
and revenue provisions and $19 billion in net reductions
deriving from the education provisions. Approximately
$114 billion of the total reduction would be onbudget;
other effects related to Social Security revenues and
spending as well as spending by the U.S. Postal Service
are classified as off-budget. CBO has not completed an
estimate of the potential impact of the legislation on
discretionary spending, which would be subject to future
appropriation action."
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12033/12-23-SelectedHealthcarePublications.pdf
About CBO:
http://www.cbo.gov/aboutcbo/factsheet.cfm
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Health Insurers Break Profit Records
as 2.7 Million Americans Lose Coverage
http://bit.ly/92JBoC
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NEJM: Buying Health Care, the Individual Mandate, and the
Constitution
http://bit.ly/9FElMG
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NAIC: Why does the law require me to purchase health insurance
coverage?
"The key goal of the
health care reform law is to ensure that nobody can be denied coverage
or be priced out of coverage due to a health problem.
If you allow
people to wait until they have a health problem to purchase insurance,
the health insurance market simply will not work. There would be a small
number of very expensive choices for everyone.
So, the law requires that
everyone have minimum coverage, creating a larger pool of both sick and
healthy individuals."
(NAIC: National Association of Insurance Commissioners)
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About the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners)
naic.org
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Be Not Afraid,
NEJM
- Len M. Nichols, Ph.D.
http://bit.ly/aamAPV
"The objective truth is that we cannot begin to get our fiscal
house in order until we control the growth of costs in
Medicare,
Medicaid, and the entire health care
system. We cannot achieve
this without government
action.
Not a government takeover, but
government
action. Only government can rewrite the rules of
private insurance markets so that insurers thrive by helping
enrollees find high-value care, not by excluding the sick."
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What does the health-care law mean to me?
http://bit.ly/d9XF4n
"This tool estimates what it could mean for your health coverage
and taxes based on your income, family size and current
insurance status." |
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ASCO on Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act
http://bit.ly/94zNrl
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CBS:
A Look At What's in the Health Care Bill
http://bit.ly/aAtl5f
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Text of Bill
(Read it, before you critique it!)
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Government Reports and Updates on
Health Care Bill
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What does the health-care law mean to me?
http://bit.ly/d9XF4n
"This tool estimates what it could mean for your health coverage
and taxes based on your income, family size and current
insurance status." |
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ASCO on Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act
http://bit.ly/94zNrl
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Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) projects Savings
statement of cost of current Health Care Bill, March 2010:
"CBO and JCT now estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and
revenue effects of enacting H.R. 3590 as passed by the Senate would
yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $118 billion over the
2010–2019 period.
Source:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11307/Reid_Letter_HR3590.pdf
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Health Care Costs
and Trends of Journal- Health Affairs:
Increased health spending and decreased GDP combined to increase
health care's share of the economy by 1.1 percent – the biggest
one-year jump since the government began tracking the numbers in
1960. According to CMS economists writing in the journal, Health
Affairs. Health expenditures are estimated to have consumed 17.3
percent of GDP last year.
Source:
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM136_100203_health_projections.html
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THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
IMPLEMENTING COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH:
PRIORITIES, METHODS, AND IMPACT
Another important conversation
among experts … that won’t be read by the American public
http://bit.ly/agMklW |
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President Obama's statement and goals: whitehouse.gov
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Ground rules for
constructive debate
We ask that our representatives work in a
cooperative
manner so that cancer patients, and individuals facing other serious
medical conditions, can receive high-quality care they urgently need
in a timely manner ... today and in future.
There's an
urgent need to establish facts about the healthcare system and
shared objectives, and to condemn the strategic dissemination of
misinformation.
Yes |
Avoid
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Define terms |
Slogans |
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Cite references to study data |
Forming opinion based on opinion of
others |
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Write letters, raise hand |
Shout down speakers |
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Respect and address opposing
opinion |
Demonize opposing persons and
opinions |
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Read source
documents: Verify facts from independent sources -
non-partisan, expert, non-profit ... |
Relying on interpretations of
others without verifying facts |
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Risk/benefit analysis (trade
offs) |
Focus exclusive to risks
or exclusive to benefits (black
and white)
Scare-tactics |
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Non-expert: focus on
questions |
Non-expert: focus on
judgment |
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Recognizing Bias and Misinformation
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Video: Fox News Kondracke blames Rush Limbaugh for inciting
town hall disruptions
examiner.com
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Kill Grandma? Debunking A Health Bill Scare Tactic,
by Julie Rovner
NPR.org
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PAL Blog
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Non-partisan Data / Background on US Health Care:
Based on published studies and expert testimony
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National Coalition on Health Care
http://nchc.org/facts-resources
Founded in 1990, non-profit and rigorously non-partisan
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Impacts of Health Care
Reform:
PROJECTIONS OF COSTS AND SAVINGS
http://bit.ly/cUw7TW
KENNETH E.THORPE ,Ph.D . Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Chair
Department of Health Policy and Management Rollins School of
Public Health
Emory University
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The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Uninsured: A Primer, Key Facts About Americans without Health
Insurance. October 2006. www.kff.org/uninsured/
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Health Care Reform: Cost of Failure
http://bit.ly/93t0oi
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Number of Uninsured Americans
Could Reach 65.7 Million Within 10 Years
"In the worst case scenario, the number of
uninsured Americans would increase to 57.7 million in 2014 and to
65.7 million in 2019. In the best case, the number grows to 53.1
million in 2014 and 57 million in 2019. All of these estimates
assume that states would continue to maintain current eligibility
levels for public coverage. Without this, the number of uninsured
would be even higher."
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Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The Number of Uninsured Americans is at an All-Time High. 29
August 2006 www.cbpp.org/8-29-06health.pdf
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The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Employee Health Benefits: 2008 Annual Survey. September 2008. www.kff.org/insurance/7672/index.cfm
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Institute of Medicine
Hidden Costs, Values Lost: Uninsurance in America. The National
Academies Press. 17 June 2003 http://www.iom.edu/Report.asp?id=12313
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National Committee for Quality Assurance. The State of Health
Care Quality, 2008, Industry Trends and Analysis. Washington, DC,
2007. The State of Health Care Quality 2008 is available to the
public on NCQA’s Web site, www.ncqa.org/sohc
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WHO ranking of Health Care Systems, 2000 http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en.pdf
See table, on page 152: Annex Table 1 Health system attainment and
performance in all Member States,
ranked by eight measures, estimates for 1997
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Testimony of Wendell
Potter, former Insurance Executive, Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation pbs.org
"As you hold hearings
and discuss legislative proposals over the coming weeks, I
encourage you to look very closely at the role for-profit
insurance companies play in making our health care system both
the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional in the
world. I hope you get a real sense of what life would be like
for most of us if the kind of so-called reform the insurers are
lobbying for is enacted."
Expert Perspectives: NEJM articles - links to free
full text.
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Gregory D. Curfman, M.D., Stephen
Morrissey, Ph.D., Debra Malina, Ph.D., and Jeffrey M. Drazen, M.D.
"A growing
series that currently includes almost 100 Journal
articles
and online features, a diverse group of authors representing
all
parts of the health care system and all points of view have
wrestled
with the issues the country faces. The articles provide thoughtful
commentary on universal coverage, comparative-effectiveness
research,
outcomes research, health information technology, economic
challenges and cost containment, and new delivery systems."
nejm.org
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Financial Reports
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