The bill will cost $33 billion over 4.5 years and will add 4.1 million children to the enrollment.

It will add 61-cents to each pack of cigarettes in order to pay for the health plan.

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House to Pass Child Health Bill

In fact, the top officials state that one out of five states say that no children with serious mental health issues recieve good care.

The USA Today reports that a “report” surveyed state and county mental health officials (and others) involved with children’s care.

The result was that only seven states had consistent funding for children of all ages. Some federal and state policies blocked Medicaid reimbursement (which is allowed for preventative care).

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Children’s Mental Health Care Lacking

His health care reform also includes:

1. requiring large companies to provide care plans for their employees or contribute to funds for the uninsured

2. requiring that ALL children are insured (expanding State Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicaid

3. creating a national insurance program for people who don’t have employers who provide insurance (like Cobra)

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Obama’s Health Care Reform

In summary, Barak Obama wants a new national health plan for all US citizens and have government establish a national practice standard for health providers. McCain wants to make health insurance more affordable by fostering competition among insurance companies, and giving families’ freedom of choice in choosing health care insurance across state lines.

Disclaimer – I read this from the Health-insurance-carriers.com blog and not my own personal opinion or analysis.

Barak Obama:

• Guaranteed Eligibility. This will allow sick people (with recent and pre-existing conditions) to obtain health care.
• Comprehensive Benefits. This is similar to the package offered through Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. It will cover all necessary medical services, which include preventive, maternity and mental health care.
• Affordability. There will be lower premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
• Simpler paperwork and reined in health costs.
• Public Plan with simple enrollment and ready access to coverage.
• Portability and Choice. People enrolled in the new public plan and the National Health Insurance Exchange (another Obama plan) will be able to move from job to job without jeopardizing insurance coverage.
• Quality and Efficiency. The health insurance companies participating in the new plan will be required to report data to ensure that standards for quality are met

John McCain:

• By reforming tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health coverage and providing everyone with a $2,500 tax credit; families will receive $5,000. This will increase incentives for health care coverage.
• Allowing families to purchase health care insurance nationwide to maximize choices and heighten competition.
• Providing multi-year coverage that moves with you from job to job and from home to home.
• Requiring states with Medicaid to develop a financial risk adjustment bonus to high-cost and low income families that will supplement tax credits and funds for Medicaid.
• Allowing people to purchase insurance through any organization or association of choice (i.e. churches, employers, individual purchases, and professional associations). The policy chosen will be available to small businesses and the self-employed; and will be portable across jobs. It will also automatically bridge the time between Medicare eligibility and retirement. Certification and rigorous standards would have to be met before plans are approved.

Source:
Safiyyah Lanier. “Health Care: John McCain vs Barack Obama” Health Insurance Carriers. March 24th, 2008.

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Health care plans of McCain vs. Obama

Here is a summary of the news release.

1. Drug safety failures. This year, rosiglitazone (Avandia), a diabetes drug, became the latest medication found to have serious side effects that weren’t apparent when it was approved by the FDA.

2. Genome-wide association studies. Researchers find unique “flags” associated with disease and then conduct an intensive search for genetic miscues just in that neighborhood of the genome. This year, genome-wide association studies have identified genes associated with type 2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and resistance to HIV infection, to name a few examples.

3. Genome sequencing in a jiffy–and cheap. Sequencing a genome — identifying all the chemical base pairs of someone’s genes — is getting a lot faster and cheaper. Within a decade, the price of sequencing a genome may drop to $1,000, say some experts. Cheap genome sequencing may soon usher in a new era of personalized medicine, with health advice and medical treatments tailored to each individual’s genes.

4. Waking up to a new health habit: Sleep. The evidence has reached critical mass–getting between seven and nine hours of sleep a night is one of the pillars of good health, along with physical activity and eating a healthful diet. Poor sleep has been linked to health problems ranging from diabetes to heart disease to obesity.

5. Health is going global. Philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are pouring billions into efforts to combat disease on a global scale. This worldwide outlook comes from more than just altruism–AIDS, avian flu, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have shown that many health problems have little respect for borders.

6. Cooling off inflammation. TNF-alpha blockers, drugs that interfere with a protein that contributes to inflammation, have given doctors and patients an important new treatment choice for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. Daunting price tags and serious side effects make the TNF-alpha blockers less than ideal, but by tackling inflammation at its roots, they may light the way for a new approach to treating many diseases with an inflammatory component–even Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

7. Covering the uninsured. With health care costs continuing to increase and employers cutting back on coverage, lawmakers are filling in the gaps. Illinois has created the All Kids program to cover children. Massachusetts law mandates that everyone in the state must purchase health insurance, and other states may follow suit. The Medicare Part D program, despite its flaws, has succeeded in extending prescription drug coverage to seniors. Time will tell whether these incremental steps will replace or merely delay more sweeping reform of a system that leaves 47 million Americans without insurance.

8. Tying reimbursement to quality health care. Momentum is building for an array of incentives for doctors and hospitals to provide higher-quality medical care. Medicare this year started paying doctors a bonus for reporting certain quality measures, and its experiment to pay hospitals performance bonuses is a success, according to most experts. Some health plans are using quality-of-care disincentives by refusing to pay for care related to complications from certain types of medical errors. And some providers are instituting rigorous quality-of-care programs on their own–and agreeing not to charge for care related to certain surgical complications. Many details have yet to be worked out, but this approach could both improve health outcomes and reduce costs.

9.A better mammogram? Two studies this year found that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans are better than other techniques at identifying breast cancers in high-risk women. The American Cancer Society revised its screening recommendations to say that women at high risk for breast cancer should get a breast MRI every year, in addition to a regular mammogram.

10.Peeking into the brain for disease clues. New imaging technologies are letting researchers “see” inside the brain and watch its inner workings. The hope is these tests will mean more certain diagnoses for many conditions and, eventually, better treatments.

[source: prnewswire via earthtimes]

Tags: HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HARVARD HEALTH LETTER, TOP TEN LIST, FDA, GENOME, GENE SEQUENCING, SLEEP, GLOBAL HEALTH, INFLAMMATION, HEALTH INSURANCE, HEALTH CARE QUALITY, MAMMOGRAM, MRI, BREAST CANCER, PET SCAN, ALZHEIMER’S

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Top 10 health stories of 2007

‘What is it? Who currently benefits? What changes are going to happen? Why the buzz in DC?’ are just some of the questions that run through my mind as I listen to a breaking news in my local TV. So, I did a little browsing and compiled what I learned.

What is the Children’s Health Insurance Program?

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is designed for families who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, yet cannot afford to buy private insurance for their children. CHIP coverage provides eligible children with coverage for a full range of health services including regular checkups, immunizations, prescription drugs, lab tests, X-rays, hospital visits and more.

Covered would be households with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

CHIP expires today, and so legislators have been “working to help states brace for the possibility that hundreds of thousands of children could lose health coverage if President Bush vetoes its reauthorization”.

Approval of the bill to extend the program has been delayed because politicians want to add an expansion clause to it.

The program provides states $5 billion a year in matching federal funds. Members of the House and Senate approved an expansion of the program last week that would increase spending to $60 billion over the next five years. Funding for the increase would come from a 61-cent increase on the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

President Bush has said he plans to veto the measure, arguing that the expansion of the program would put the nation one step closer to universal health care. He has instead proposed allocating the program $30 billion over the next five years.

Depending on the political voice you listen to, you’ll get different spins to the story.

Expansion of health care for kids unwise comments the Chicago Sun Times.

State: Bush plan would cut health care for 600,000 kids reports the San Diego Tribune.

Where do you stand?

Tags: SCHIP, state, children’s health, insurance program, veto, bush, house, bill, health care, children

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What is the Children’s Health Insurance Program?