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Obama’s Health Care Reform Turns Into Health Insurance Reform?

Obama and his ministerial team have made a small but important change in the ways they are expressing their heath reform policy. Obama, initially when speaking about this new system, talked mainly about the massive shift or transformation in the country’s health care system which would cut the ever increasing costs spent in medication. But the president has now altered his language and now speaks exclusively about the health insurance reforms.

Speaking about this, even Obama’s visit to the town hall meeting in New Hampshire was referred by White House as the health insurance reform hall. But this was not the case when all these proceedings started back in March and the Obama’s campaign to renovate the country’s healthcare system was named the White House Health Reform Forum.

This change in plan had let to the worries of many healthcare experts as this new plan clears signals that Obama will only settle expanding the health insurance coverage to uninsured people rather than bringing the escalating health care costs under proper control as mentioned in the original policy. The economists are also not very happy with this decision as they feel just covering the insurance cost without any methods to cut additional healthcare costs will only create further financial mess. Speaking about this David Knott, Head of the Booz & Co’s global health practice said that the team has lost the true plot on the health care reform. He also feels that the initial debate started out as a full fledged solution to the country’s health care system but now has nailed down to only meet the affordability problem.

It is clearly obvious that Obama’s current language and the one he used while the start of the debate is completely different. Speaking to the crowd in New Hampshire the president said, health insurance reforms are the key to build new foundation to the country health care system. He highlighted the fact that almost 46 million Americans are without health insurance today. He also stressed that these health insurance reforms are not only for the uninsured as most of these policies favor the insurance companies. These remarks are contradictory to Obama’s speech which he laid on March 5 at health reform summit. There the President said that cutting the overall health care costs would be the first step forward in rebuilding the country’s economy. The President then said that these investments in health care reform will definitely not add up to the budget and these investments would prove really profitable.

What has lead to this change? Right from the start it was obvious that the Congress has not got any plans to change the fee-for- the service method that is currently in practice for paying the hospitals and doctors. This method rewards the healthcare providers not for the quality but quantity. So if you assume that these doctors and hospitals account for almost two thirds of the nation’s health related spending, not touching this part means that the legislators have not many option to cut costs. Added to this, the legislators have even proposed paying doctors a lump sum of $245 billion in the Medicare reimbursements for the next 10 years to ensure their support for the health reform.

The government’s reluctance in this can be directly owed to the fact that hospitals are largest employers in most districts and also give them the political clout. Even the public rates these doctors at top among the other professions. In this context, insurers are the one who are quite unpopular with the public and thus are much easier target.

This change in plan has lead to arguments and people are started making it these days for passing the universal coverage. Many feel that this governments approach is concentrating on universal coverage and worrying about the overall cost cutting changes later. Massachusetts also did the same in the year 2006 when it proposed a universal coverage law. But now the city is facing escalating costs and is now planning to overhaul the fee structures of doctors. It is sure that this strategy won’t be possible in a nationwide basis where the current health care spending is projected to consume almost 20% of the GDP by 2017.

Hearing to the president’s change in tone, Robert Laszewki, Health insurance consultant wrote in his blog named health care policy & market review that he had been insisting for months that heath care reform bills passed by the government have not been true healthcare reform bills but are expansions to the health insurance reforms. He also feels that the country needs lot more than mere health insurance reforms and they truly needed health care reforms.

Student Loan Repayment Program - More Agencies Paying Off Their Employee’s Student Loan Debt

The Office of Personnel Management released a report recently according to which the federal agencies have increased their expenditure on programs for student loan repayment for the employees by 22% from 2007 to the year 2008. John Berry, the director of OPM said that he is pleased with this increase. He said that there are several skills gaps within the federal government and all the possible ways should be adopted to bring best possible services to the public of America.

During the year 2008, 6,879 employees were provided with $51.6 million by 35 federal agencies in the student loan repayments. For the fiscal year 2007, 33 federal agencies took part in the repayment program by distributing $42.2 million of loan repayments to 6,619 employees. In the last cycle of reporting, OPM switched to collecting calendar year data from fiscal year data.

Since the fiscal 2002, the program has substantially grown. At that time, agencies were able to offer repayments of student loans as incentives for the employees for the first time to continue in the government. In 2002, only 16 federal agencies took part by spending $3.2 million loan repayments for 690 employees. The agencies are able to supply as much as $10,000 per year and a total of $60,000 for every employee, in return of which, the recipients are required to commit to 3 years in federal service.

According to the report, although there has been a recent growth within the program, only 39 out of 80 independent agencies and departments have either provided repayments of student loans or are planning to begin in near future. 17 agencies told the OPM that they are not able to spend money on the student loan repayments mainly because of the budget process.

Out of all the agencies that participated, most of the assistance is provided by the Justice Department which spent $23,420,746 on relief of loans for 2,610 employees. Some other major participants are Defense and the State departments, Securities and Exchange Commission and Government Accountability Office.

Officials of the state department told the OPM that according to an employees’ survey who received repayments of the loan, the program has a major impact on the retention. Since the beginning of the program in the year 2002, 2,300 employees of the state have received loan payments and out of these employees, only 127 have resigned before completing their 3 years of required federal service.

Max Stier, the president of non-profit Partnership for Public Service, appreciated the efforts of the agency to take part in this repayment program, especially during these tough economic times. He said that this is a very significant incentive towards recruitment. By all the means of research, this is one of the most momentous ways for encouraging talent from the university campuses to serve to the government.

Cash For Clunkers Program Still Hot With Sales

Car purchasers showed signs of easing after the lunatic rush a week ago but sales were not far from being on the top over the last weekend given the popularity of “Cash for Clunkers” program.

Last week, the senate voted to push in an extra 2 billion dollars into the very notable auto discount program. This shall be good enough to stretch the program till Labor Day. As anticipated, this brought the traffic to a relative halt in terms of arrival at the dealer’s desk. This has been a departure from the trend last week when the buyers rushed to dealers gripped with fear that the program would run short of money.

Yes, the sale of cars hasn’t doubled akin to the weekend prior yet it is 25 to 50 percent in excess of the general fare at many dealers in Los Angeles County. This is a peaking seemingly associated with the clunkers discount. Don Rohde, sales manager at Galpin Ford in North Hills suggested that his group was still quite busy and he is falling short of salesmen to tackle the demand. The dealership had sold as many as 70 new cars over the last weekend. It is lesser than 115 cars a week prior but half as much in excess of sales in past few months. According to Rohde, about 80 to 90 percent of this fresh car sale is owing to the clunker show.

According to Sammy Kobeissi, sales manager at Power Ford in Valencia, the program has been nothing short of amazing and he felt that though not at last week’s position, the clunkers show was still a true winner.  The clunkers program that took off on July 24 provided the car purchasers with a mammoth discount of $ 3500 to $ 4500. This is when they buy gas guzzlers for better and more fuel-friendly vehicles. Till date, 220,000 and more vehicles have already found their way out of dealer’s house via this program providing a much required emancipation to the auto industry. If sales tracker Autodata Corp is to be believed, then the industry has already shoved some 11.2 million units of light trucks and cars to the customers in July. This incidentally is the highest level of sales in last 10 months.

Kobeissi stated that by early parts of Sunday morning, the Ford dealership had sold 18 fresh cars in comparison to 30 over the just culminated weekend. Having said this, the clunkers trade-in was responsible for as much as half of the weekend’s fresh car sales.

At frontier Toyota, Teresa Webber of Stevenson Ranch got close to trading in her 2000 Ford Explorer for a just generated Toyota RAV4. Webber felt that the timely rebate has allowed them to pre-pone their car buying wish that they had slated for 6 months hence. The cumbersome paper formalities and government’s failure in having paid out the rebate money notwithstanding, the program is doing well, according to David O’Brien, general sales manager at Frontier Toyota. He suggested that the program has worked every bit that was asked of it giving people a chance to grab their clunker trade-in and amassing response form public in unprecedented style. The sweet anxiety for the dealers is that they have to really gear up for keeping up with the demand schedule. Nationwide, dealerships have suggested that they have fallen short on some of the more popular vehicles like Toyota Prius, Ford Focus and Dodge Caliber. Rohde summed it up brilliantly saying that “It’s kind of a good problem to have”.

H1N1 Vaccine Will Be Attested and Ready by September According to WHO

Come September and the very first swine flu vaccines will be there for everybody to use after being attested. This is being suggested by the WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research Marie-Paule Kieny. Kieny further suggested that he was positive about the enhanced standards of vaccine production yields coming in the wake of poor beginning, apparently propelled by supply issues.

By the first phase of September, scientists will have gone through the results of first H1N1 vaccine clinical trials. This has the objective of finding out the number of doses needed by the new vaccine for bestowing adequate shield against the virus. Early research has claimed that the antigen utilized doesn’t necessarily initiate an equally stern response to that of seasonal flu vaccine and this is why it might be required to utilize two doses and this could effectively halve the number of people ready for immunization. According to Reuters, just after the initial clinical trial results pour in, regulators could judge the approval of vaccines and the first countries will be anticipated to commence mass vaccination programs.

Obama to Talk About H1N1 with Mexican and Canadian Leader

In an associated news report, President Barack Obama will be meeting Mexican president Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper this Sunday and Monday in the Guadalaraja province of Mexico. The meet would chiefly discus ideas to tackle the expected rise of Swine Flu virus this autumn. According to the White House Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan, the leaders are anticipated to read a joint statement in regards to their amalgamated endeavors to check the potency of impact of H1N1.

Brennan further suggested that it was not beyond recognition for everyone that the Swine Flu virus had become a major challenge for all. It was only imminent and unavoidable that people would succumb to H1N1 this autumn. All over the last few months, many people have been falling ill and passing away.

Weight Loss Surgeries Safer Than Thought, Says Study

Researchers have come up with a safe tag for three eminent and widely popular weight loss surgeries. Some practitioners had been rather abhorrent about advising weight loss surgery to fat patients owing to safety concerns.

Dr. Bruce Wolfe of Oregon Health & Science University suggested the surgery to be pretty safe. Studying a trio of such stomach diminishing surgeries, it was found that one out of 333 patients passed away 30 days into the surgery and one out of every 24 developed some metabolic intricacy. Putting it against open surgery, the figures are a relief. 1 out of 47 patients tend to pass away during open surgeries. Wolfe said that there was further chance of improvement but presently, the data seems rather satisfying in light of recent past.

Weight-loss or bariatric surgery has gained fast grounds and come as a manna from heaven for the obese people. Such people have found it tougher to lose flab and abate the health issues that come along with obesity. Any one with a body mass index at or over 40 is being recommended such a surgery by the National Institutes of Health. BMI happens to be weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared.

A research took a look at 1198 highly obese people who had undertaken gastric banding. The process creates a smaller stomach through incisions thereby helping create an illusion of wholesome meals. Another surgery done laparoscopically, (Roux-en-Y) created tinier incisions in the belly by closing the stomach in its anterior area.

There were no deaths reported 30 days into the program for gastric banding. It was one among 500 for the laparoscopic bypass. It is worthwhile to note that a self-pronounced open bypass resulted in 10 calamities per 500 people.

Even in regards to complications like clot development, follow-up surgery and death, gastric banding led from the front with 1% complication, followed by laparoscopic bypass with 4.8% complication and then an open bypass with 7.8% complication. Wolfe further explained that the data also show why many surgeons would prefer gastric banding than laparoscopic bypass due to the risk factors involved.

Dr. Malcolm Robinson of Harvard Medical School suggested that complication rates for weight loss surgeries are along the lines with other major operations. An important point to be noted is that since the study took into its wing the services of 33 highly talented U.S surgeons, the result is not easily reproducible.

Johnson & Johnson and Allergan Inc are two band manufacture for weight-loss surgery.