| "Access to Universal Health Care - Pt 1: Introductions, and Healthcare in New Jersey" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Pt 1: WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS - Richard F. Keevey, Director, Policy Research Institute for the Region, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University - Daniel A. Notterman, MD, MA, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN NEW JERSEY - Senator Joseph Vitale, Senator and Chairman, Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee, New Jersey State Senate - Heather Howard, Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services - Christine Stearns, Vice President for Health and Legal Affairs, New Jersey Business and Industry Association | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Monday, December 8, 2008
Video Links: Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Evidence Gap - British Balance Benefit vs. Cost of Latest Drugs - NYTimes.com
The Evidence Gap - British Balance Benefit vs. Cost of Latest Drugs - NYTimes.com
"RUISLIP, England — When Bruce Hardy’s kidney cancer spread to his lung, his doctor recommended an expensive new pill from Pfizer. But Mr. Hardy is British, and the British health authorities refused to buy the medicine. His wife has been distraught.
“Everybody should be allowed to have as much life as they can,” Joy Hardy said in the couple’s modest home outside London.
"If the Hardys lived in the United States or just about any European country other than Britain, Mr. Hardy would most likely get the drug, although he might have to pay part of the cost. A clinical trial showed that the pill, called Sutent, delays cancer progression for six months at an estimated treatment cost of $54,000.
"But at that price, Mr. Hardy’s life is not worth prolonging, according to a British government agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The institute, known as NICE, has decided that Britain, except in rare cases, can afford only £15,000, or about $22,750, to save six months of a citizen’s life.
"British authorities, after a storm of protest, are reconsidering their decision on the cancer drug and others.
"For years, Britain was almost alone in using evidence of cost-effectiveness to decide what to pay for. But skyrocketing prices for drugs and medical devices have led a growing number of countries to ask the hardest of questions: How much is life worth? For many, NICE has the answer. "What a great piece. I've been hearing more and more about NICE lately, with this being the most visible publication on it.
As I've said elsewhere under the "Rationing" label, I would much rather have a fair, national or regional, system of objective analysis by scientists deciding on what care we offer to patients than the current method. The current method being everything for everyone all the time until we can peel the oncologists (sorry, guys! Others of us are guilty, too!) off the patient. Our current method also includes allowing Lilly to lobby for new reimbursement codes to pay for Xigris, or Zimmer to get Medicare to pay twice as much for a "women's" TKR and assorted other pieces of free market capitalism.
But the US' favorite method of rationing care, of course, is by income. Don't have it, don't get it. Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Health Care Blog: POLICY: Oh Canada
The Health Care Blog: POLICY: Oh Canada
"This article is about Canada's health system and its relationship to the US health policy debate. It is not meant to be an endorsement of Canada's system, or an endorsement of single payer for the US."
Very well done, but a few years old. Most of the information is still pertinent. Very nice, very detailed compare/contrast piece on US vs. Canadian Healthcare systems.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Excluded Voices : CJR:
Excluded Voices : CJR::
The last lines:
"TL: What will it take to change the terms of today’s health care conversation?
TM: In my judgment, it would take the president of the United States to lead a fundamental re-examination of the presently limited debate over health care reform."
An interesting piece, debunking, or at least wuestioning, the conventional wisdom of why the 93-94 Clinton reform failed and what needs to be done to have a better debate this time. That would be our job: make sure the debate is open, honest, inclusive and data driven.
Consensus emerging on universal healthcare - Los Angeles Times
Consensus emerging on universal healthcare - Los Angeles Times:
"Also unresolved is what mechanisms might be created to force individuals or businesses to get insurance, both potentially contentious subjects.
And few have tackled how the government will control costs and set standards of care, proposals that raise the unpopular prospect of federal regulators dictating which doctors Americans can see and what drugs they can take.
'There are some very big questions and some very big stumbling blocks,' said Stuart Butler, vice president for domestic policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who has been watching the healthcare debate for three decades.
'Once you get into the details, the consensus is going to vanish pretty quickly, I suspect,' he said.
At the same time, advocates for a single-payer system, including the California Nurses Assn., have vowed to continue pushing the idea next year along with many Democrats on Capitol Hill."
Our work is cut out for us. We must not let anything to be placed "off the table," as single payer was suggested to be elsewhere in this article, without a fight.
World Health Organization Report on Social Health Insurance Systems
in Western Europe.
It's 313 pages, so, no, I haven't read it yet, but I want the resources at our fingertips when the time comes...
From the introduction:
The concept of social health insurance (SHI) is deeply ingrained in the fabric of health care systems in western Europe. It provides the organizing principle and a reponderance of the funding in seven countries – Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Since 1995, it has also become the legal basis for organizing health services in Israel. Previously, SHI models played an important role in a number of other countries that subsequently changed to predominantly tax-funded arrangements in the second half of the twentieth century – Denmark (1973), Italy (1978), Portugal (1979), Greece (1983) and Spain (1986). Moreover, there are segments of SHI-based health care funding arrangements still operating in predominantly tax-funded countries like Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as well as in Greece and Portugal. In addition, a substantial number of central and eastern European (CEE) countries have introduced adapted SHI models since they regained control over national policy-making – among them Hungary (1989), Lithuania (1991), Czech Republic (1992), Estonia (1992), Latvia (1994), Slovakia (1994) and Poland (1999).
Also, I'm going to add a topic Tag of "Social Heath Insurance" and cross tag all my "Bismarckian" ones so that it becomes clear they are the same thing. Sphere: Related Content
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tax Policy Center: TAXES AND HEALTH INSURANCE: ANALYSIS AND POLICY
TAXES AND HEALTH INSURANCE: ANALYSIS AND POLICY
February 29, 2008
Sponsored by the Tax Policy Center and the American Tax Policy Institute
Falk Auditorium, Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC
"Download paper summaries.
Download conference transcript.
Listen to the audio recordings:
* Session One
* Session Two
* Session Three" Sphere: Related Content