Category: Health

That old adage, "lies, damn lies, and statistics," popped into my head after finishing my story tonight. How much will a public health care plan cost? The House bill allows for $2 billion dollars to seed a public option plan. That money would pay for administrative start-up costs and initial reserves. The bill expects the plan to pay back that money over ten years. The American Academy of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries figures it would take between $1 billion and $42 billion in the first ten years to start up a public plan. The wide range depends on how many people enroll, how high their claims are, and how much they pay in premiums.

Economists have been monitoring Influenza A H1N1, better known as "swine flu," since its appearance in the U.S. this spring -- fearing a widespread outbreak of the deadly virus might disrupt America's nascent economic recovery.

How can the flu hurt the economy? A large chunk of the population gets sick, many for weeks at time, missing work and bringing productivity to a screeching halt. People stop going to public areas like restaurants or the movies to avoid exposure. Tourism and world trade decline as people avoid travel to infected areas. And costs for treatment skyrocket, putting further strain on companies and individuals to cover rising insurance costs.

Health care spending makes up 16% of the U.S. economy. Reforming the system won't happen overnight. But Democratic lawmakers are sure to add enough immediate benefits to make it pay off for them politically. You can see how the policy and political goals come together in the Senate Finance Committee bill (aka America's Healthy Future Act). People with pre-existing conditions will have immediate access to a high risk pool and get subsidies for coverage. After a couple of years small businesses and low income Americans get tax credits to buy insurance. There would be no tax penalties for employers or individuals until after the 2012 election.

Mr. Conrad (D., N.D.) votes no, Ms. Lincoln (D., Ark.) votes no, Mr. Nelson (D., Fla.) votes no, Mr. Carper (D., Del.) votes no, and the Chair, Mr. Baucus (D., Mont.) votes no. While it is true that there will be more opportunities, as health care legislation staggers through Congress, to add some sort of government insurance plan to the package, these five Democrats certainly drove a nail deep into the coffin of the "public option" as they rejected a proposal offered by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) before the Senate Finance Committee.

Even when Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) followed up with a proposal with payment procedures more generous to doctors and hospitals than those in Sen. Rockefeller's plan, Sens. Lincoln, Carper and Baucus still voted no; along, of course, with all the Republicans on the Committee.

Too see my primary care doctor for my regular check-up, I usually schedule the appointment 3 to 6 months in advance. But it's still possible see the doctor within one or two days for more pressing concerns. Adding more people to the ranks of the insured is sure to create some log-jams, but it may also open up more possibilities. Some doctors already have additional evening and weekend hours. Others are looking at team treatment, where doctors, nurses, dieticians, and pharmacists coordinate patient care. Also called a medical home, this type of coordinated approach, along with new technology, makes it easier to treat patients with chronic disease and multiple health issues.

As someone who covers health care a lot, I've wondered whether it might be easier to write my stories if I could have the phrase "rapidly rising cost of health insurance" assigned to the F-1 or F-2 button at the top of my computer keyboard. After experiencing several decades in which the cost of health insurance rose faster than the rate of inflation, Americans have come to grudgingly expect that health insurance (if you're lucky enough to have it) will be significantly more expensive each year.

But is the "rapidly rising cost of health insurance" (there it is again!) truly a fait accompli? There's some evidence that it is possible to buck the trend. How? Well, in the past, companies typically looked at managing the cost of health benefits. Fair enough. But the companies which "buck the trend" take a different approach: instead of focusing on the health plan, they focus on the health of their workforce, and how to improve it.

I had one of the 24/7 cable-blabber channels serving as white-noise for my office the other day when I saw a comely anchor look up at the ceiling and muse, "I wonder if health care should be a right?" The non-comely guy in the co-anchor chair next to her nearly had an attack of apoplexy, and as he gagged she added, "Just asking" and moved on.

This was not to be the end of it, of course. Later in the day a producer who knew a good thing when she heard it brought in a couple of "experts" to discuss the issue. The word "discuss" has an unusual meaning when applied to these talk channels, where a rational exchange of ideas and a meeting of minds is the last thing that they want. Informative discussion is, you see, considered boring in the world of talk television. What sells are raised voices, belligerence and name-calling. The more, the merrier.

The average cost of a family health-insurance policy has jumped to nearly $13,500 a year, according to the latest survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Worse, workers who get help paying for health insurance from their employers are paying much higher premiums, on the average of about $3,500 out-of-pocket each year -- that's double the amount they were paying just 10 years ago. And these days more insurers are monitoring, and in some cases penalizing individuals with higher premiums, for unhealthy habits such as smoking or lack of exercise. If you're single, there's a bit of good news in the Kaiser survey -- health-insurance premiums for individuals stayed relatively stable, averaging about $779 a year.

So what can you do to combat rising costs? Despite the jump in premiums, there are a number of ways to keep costs low. If your health-insurance provider gives you the option, consider raising your deductible -- the amount you pay before insurance kicks in. The higher your deductible, the lower your premiums. To protect yourself from a whack to the pocketbook, consider setting up a health-savings account with your bank or insurance provider. (First, check with your insurer to make sure the plan you choose qualifies for an HSA.)

Tonight's "Bill of Health" story on company health plans developed from a simple question: Why do companies offer health benefits at all? The average price of a company-provided health plan will rise by more than 10 percent in 2010 (according to the The Segal Company consulting firm), and when you consider companies pay somewhere between 75% to 85% of a plan's cost -- why do they even bother? After all, only two states (Massachusetts and Hawaii) mandate some form of coverage. For companies elsewhere, it's a voluntary effort.

The answer to the "why bother?" question is a bit of a history lesson. During World War 2, the nation's domestic war-related industries (building bombers, ships, and the like) needed lots of workers. But with so many men and women serving in uniform overseas, companies were competing for a limited supply of labor. In an ordinary world, companies might have been able to offer higher wages to attract workers, but US authorities froze wages by federal order (because of concerns about inflation).

The focus of healthcare stories these days is on the action (or inaction, depending on your viewpoint) in Washington and Congress. Yet the challenges companies face as the actually try to provide health care plan benefits to their employees is an issue that, in many ways, has been "under-reported" by those of us in the media. So that's what we were trying to focus on in tonight's Bill of Health. This report is the first of a 3-part series developed by photographer/editor Michael Malanga and myself.

Our idea was to focus on one company, preferably a small one (only a slim majority of companies with 9 workers or less still offer health benefits at all, compared to 99 percent of corporations with 200 or more workers), and to tell THAT company's health-insurance story. We wound up being put in touch with Kathy and Bob Latham, the owners of Latham Marine, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.