Healthcare In Crisis: Bush to veto children's healthcare bill

Compassionate Conservative Baby Killers - Bush couldn't figure out a way to use healthcare for children as another money laundering operation. He should be keeping children alive and healthy because they will be paying for the Iraq war. This is pure evil.

For years it has been one of the few issues that liberals and conservatives in Congress could agree on -- continuing and expanding a state-federal partnership to provide health insurance for kids, mainly the children of the working poor.

So when senators of both parties reached a compromise this summer and then beat back efforts by House Democrats to triple the program's budget, its many Republican backers thought they had a political victory that President Bush could embrace.

Instead, the issue has become an ideological flash point and Bush is threatening to cast what may become the year's most controversial veto. In the process, he could create new intraparty turmoil for fellow Republicans who have looked to passage of the bill to brighten an otherwise grim political outlook.

The question will come to the floor of Congress this week, days before the old program is set to expire Sept. 30. At that point, 6 million children -- including about 800,000 in California -- could lose coverage.

One snag is cost. Even the final compromise, far less open-handed than the House wanted, calls for more money. And the White House is trying to draw a tighter line on domestic spending.

The bigger stumbling block has turned out to be ideological. After 10 years of sailing along as a feel-good idea that just about everyone supported, the children's medical insurance program has been drawn into the contentious debate about healthcare in general.

Bush has attacked the compromise bill because it would expand coverage to some middle-class families instead of retaining the plan's original focus on those with low incomes. The bill could lay the groundwork for government-run national healthcare, he has said.

In his Saturday radio address, the president said Democrats were at fault: "Instead of working with my administration to enact this funding increase for children's health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed."

In effect, the White House says, Democrats see the bill as a way to begin doing for children what Medicare does for the elderly: make healthcare a national entitlement.

More - Denying Children's Healthcare (NY Times)

Statistics Collection

80 percent of the hospital closures nationwide occured in states that didn’t expand Medicaid. 2019
About 75,000 patients with hospital-related infections died in 2011.
A recent study conducted by the Kresge Foundation and published in Health Affairs found that treating children who are exposed to air pollution, toxic chemicals and other pollutants costs a staggering $76.6 billion dollars a year. The study also found that children with existing allergies to common airborne allergens are even more vulnerable to chemical pollutants than others.
About 27.8 million people without coverage are working, either part or full time.
The rate of prescription drug use for the American South, with West Virginia the worst off, is higher than the rest of the country. West Virginia filled 17.7 prescriptions per capita compared to a national average of 11.5.
Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found
Insurance and HMO Industries Spend Nearly $700,000 Per Day to Kill Health Care Reform.
86.7 million Americans were uninsured at some point in 2007 and 2008.
About 67 percent of medications dispensed in 2007 were generic drugs — up from 63 percent the year before. Generics can cost as little as one-third the price of brand-names.
Health care continued to take up a greater share of the economy in 2007, as spending on hospitals, doctors and other services increased 6.1 percent to $2.2 trillion.
Several major U.S. insurance companies, like Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina and southern California are now considering sending patients overseas for surgeries. (5/07)
Experts predict that the medical tourism industry will grow to $40 billion by 2010.
An estimated 500,000 Americans travel out of the U.S. every year for some type of medical care. Care they can't afford here.
rising costs and deteriorating coverage cause more than one-in-four (28 percent) to go without needed care because they can't afford it.
In 2007, 75 million working-age adults were either uninsured or underinsured, up from 61 million in 2003.
It is estimated that, nationwide, 18,000 adults between the ages of 25 and 64 died in 2000 because they did not have health insurance. Subsequently, The Urban Institute estimated that at least 22,000 adults in the same age group died in 2006 because they did not have health insurance.
In 2006, nearly 5,000 community hospitals provided uncompensated care costing $31.2 billion
Roughly one-half of America's hospitals operating in the red
Bad debts for hospitals in 2004 were estimated to be between $26bn and $30bn, representing about 12 per cent of their revenue and rising.
The administration of the health care system today consumes approximately 31% of the money spent for health care.
The American Hospital Association, which represents 5,000 hospitals and health care systems, spent $7.3 million in the first half of 2007 to lobby the federal government, according to a disclosure form.
Record numbers of Americans are travelling abroad for medical treatment to escape the American healthcare system – with 100,000 patients expected to fly out this year for cosmetic surgery alone
Half the nation's 47 million uninsured workers are employed by small businesses.
47 million uninsured in 2006 up from 44.8 million uninsured in 2005. 17.1 million people under age 65 were underinsured in 2003, including 9.3 million people with employer-based insurance.
A recent New America Foundation white paper estimates the average family pays about $1,186 a year in "hidden taxes" through health insurance premiums to cover the uninsured.
15.8% of Americans are uninsured, that's one in 6.
In the US more than a million people go bankrupt each year because of illness or medical debt. 29 million Americans -- 14 percent of all adults -- are in serious medical debt.
As few as 44,000 and as many as 98,000 people die in hospitals each year because of preventable errors.
There are about 1.7 million hospital-acquired infections a year in the United States, and 99,000 deaths annually as a result.
From 2003-2005 there were 247,662 potentially preventable deaths in U.S. hospitals.
The excess cost to Medicare associated with patient safety incidents was $8.6 billion from 2003 to 2005.
At the heart of the shortage is the difference between typical reimbursements for primary care doctors and specialists. The former can expect to earn $160,000 a year, according to national data, while obstetrician/ gynecologists earn an average $230,000 and dermatologists $300,000.

Healthcare In Crisis

Monday, September 24, 2007

Bush to veto children's healthcare bill

No comments:

About Me

.

Blog Archive

Blogs:

Links:

Labels

Statistics Collection