Today's Op-Eds: Preventing Hospital Errors; Myths About The Reform Law; Medicare And The Independent Payment Advisory Board

Keep Focus On Health Care Quality, Cost Greenbay Press Gazette
No matter what happens with health care reform, the principles we've been discussing the past few months still hold true. Health care systems should continue to focus on quality and cost. When health care dollars are used with best practices that result in better outcomes, there are fewer complications and lower mortality. Individuals, health care providers and community members must continue to focus on personal wellness and making healthy decisions (12/2).

Moment Of Decision The Washington Post
The [presidential deficit reduction commission's] plan is not perfect, but ... [i]t would tackle wasteful defense spending and agriculture subsidies and seek to control health-care costs by bolstering the powers of the Medicare advisory board created by the new health-care law. It would shield programs for the disadvantaged from cuts (12/2).

The Un-Sensible Common Ground The New York Times
A good plan would acknowledge that the recent health reform law represents the best shot at curbing the inexorable rise in health costs and deficits, and that repealing or obstructing the law, as Republicans aim to do, is antithetical to deficit reduction (12/1).

Seniors' Health Care Under Fire The Denver Post
[E]ven the most savvy observers are unaware that the law's biggest effect will come from a relatively small and little-known provision creating the Independent Payment Advisory Board. ... Given what's at stake with IPAB's decisions, Colorado voters should work with elected officials to make them accountable for decisions that affect their health care. The panel's recommendations carry the force of law, even when they conflict with laws passed by Congress (Eileen Doherty, 12/2).

Medicaid: Cuts Go Back To The Future? The (Miss.) Clarion Ledger
This will be another long budget battle - but at the end of the day, it's clear that cutting the Medicaid budget in the poorest state in the union during the worst recession since the Great Depression will have dire health consequences for Mississippi's poor at a time of high unemployment and increased Medicaid demand (12/2).

The Senate's Object Lesson For GOP Health Law Repeal Hopes Kaiser Health News
Critics of health care reform this week thought they would get their first win in the campaign to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Instead they got a lesson in just how politically challenging a wholesale repeal might be (Jonathan Cohn, 12/1).

Medicaid Agency Cleaning Up Act The Lexington Herald-Leader
Every dollar Passport receives comes from state or federal taxes and is meant to be spent administering Medicaid services. In effect, then, Passport was diverting Medicaid dollars from the intended purpose and spending them on lobbying designed to keep its Medicaid dollars pipeline open to the max. Eliminating the use of contract lobbyists was one of the demands the Beshear administration made in the wake of the the audit report (12/2).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at

 

Today's OpEds: SEIU And Kids' Coverage; States Opting Out Of Medicaid?; The 'RomneyCare' Legacy; Trimming Defense Health Costs

The Smallest Victims Of ObamaCare The New York Post
To manufacture support for ObamaCare, desperate Democrats pandered to the college set and their parents. ... Now, confronted with the thorny allocation of scarce resources, money managers at the SEIU are dropping thousands of kids' health coverage because they, too, can't afford to foot the bill (Michelle Malkin, 12/1).

Why The Dump-Medicaid Idea Makes No Sense The Dallas Morning News
The economic impact of dumping Medicaid and CHIP, which requires Medicaid participation: nearly $900 billion in lost economic activity. Affected most: The one in 12 Texans who work in the health-care industry. A governor who was elected on a pro-business platform would have a hard time defending that (Steve Jacob, 11/30).

Opting Out Of Medicaid Isn't An Option The State (South Carolina)
In a normal economy, dropping out of Medicaid would be heartless, as it would throw nearly a quarter of the state's poorest and sickest citizens off of the only medical insurance program they have, and an economic lose-lose. In this economy, it would be economic suicide, sucking more than $4 billion a year out of the state and crippling hospitals (which still would by law have to provide care to anyone who seeks it), as well as doctors and pharmacies that rely on that money (11/30).

Mending ObamaCare The Wall Street Journal
Republicans should remember that while 60% or more of people who are polled may support intrusive regulation of insurance companies, a majority of voters who elected the new Republican House majority probably don't. Unless Republicans come up with other ways to deregulate the insurance market, their pre-emptive surrender on key aspects of ObamaCare will ultimately accelerate the country's move toward socialized medicine (John Fund, 11/30).

Why Conservatives Should Embrace Romney's Health-Care Legacy The Boston Globe
GOP primary voters will surely have a variety of options to consider for their nomination in 2012. But if the former Massachusetts governor does enter the race, it should be with a robust sense of confidence that what he accomplished was a sterling example of conservative success. He should embrace his record, and conservatives should follow suit (Nick Tzitzon, 11/30).

Health Insurer Surplus Should Be Limited The Seattle Times
Mike Kreidler, insurance commissioner, is asking the Legislature to renew and increase his authority over the individual market for health insurance in Washington. We support the idea. Kreidler's proposal does have a problem. He is asking for power to deny rate increases in specific lines of business, and proposes to use a financial limit - surplus - descriptive of a whole company. If the company is in surplus but the line of business is in the red, the effect may be to kill that line off (11/30).

Congress Should Heed Gates And Chiefs On Defense Health Foreign Policy
And the joint chiefs have finally come to realize that health care is devouring the rest of the defense budget, and has been doing so for a decade. They too now concede that it is not too much to ask those on active duty to increase their co-pays by the minimal amount that an inflation-based increase would represent. Nor is it outrageous to ask that the family free for TRICARE Prime, be raised from its current minimal level (Dov Zakheim, 11/30).

Drug Firms Have To Stop Paying Doctors CNN
Doctors who take money or gifts from a pharmaceutical company are more likely to prescribe that company's drugs, write favorable journal articles about the drugs, give lectures recommending the drugs and suggest adding the drugs to a hospital formulary. That influence does not disappear when the payments are disclosed. To fix that problem, the payments must be eliminated