Welcome back from a hopefully long, restful weekend of eating too much and catching up with family and friends. I took the opportunity to kick back and branch out my reading into other areas besides healthcare. Following Roethlisberger’s concussion, Federer’s fifth time ending the year at #1, and Tiger’s defeat by a fire hydrant and a tree, I thought about the decisions – good and bad – that led to and followed from those events.

Federer gets the crown for best decisions, Tiger wins the dunce cap for worst. Then I happened upon a four-letter word: trigger. In the world of Washington, D.C., ‘trigger’ is the definition of deciding NOT to make a decision. Welcome back to the healthcare reform debate.

Read more here.                              blogsurfer.us

In Part 1 we looked at how HR 3590 can bend the US healthcare cost curve, and found some expected and some surprising answers. While deficit neutrality is a healthcare reform Holy Grail, from a personal perspective my first question is “It’s deficit-neutral for whom?” The answer to that, of course, is for the government, not you.

Yes, the bill includes some good subsidies for the poorest among us, and subsidizes even those up to 400% of the poverty level. That still doesn’t prevent over-sized US healthcare costs from continuing to bankrupt the majority of Americans, as we saw explicitly in an earlier post. So beyond subsidies, what does HR 3590 do to bend your healthcare cost curve?

Read more here.                       blogsurfer.us

Here’s a fun story for you while you stuff yourself with Thanksgiving leftovers today. Change.org had a big win about a month ago against a diabolical campaign hidden beneath the misleading name of “Smart Choices”. This “nutrition labeling” initiative, backed by a conglomerate of the largest commercial food companies, claimed that Froot Loops and other unhealthy foods were Smart Choices. First they got the American Dietetic Association and Tufts University to back away from their endorsements of this tripe. Then, under pressure from the FDA, the Smart Choices program shut down. Hurray, you say? Well, they’re baaack.

Read more, see the Froot Loops commercial, and understand what this has to do with Tea Parties here.                        blogsurfer.us

When we last took a look at the weekend’s Senate happenings , basically Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu had decided to wait to ransom the healthcare reform process until after Senate debate began. So we got our 60 votes on the procedural motion to move ahead with debate (yay!), meaning we could look at a figure describing the legislative process ahead. 

But speaking of holding things for ransom, here are 5 potential holdups as we reach the homestretch for healthcare reform. Most are in the Senate, but things can also get hairy in the combined committee process and beyond. As we have agreement to proceed with Senate debate, let’s start there.

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I’ve seen a lot of praise lately for how HR 3590 includes so many cost curve-bending initiatives. Healthcare economists, a former CMS director, even the White House Office of Management and Budget Director are jumping on the HR 3590 ‘bend the cost curve’ bandwagon. To understand why, let’s look at the legislative aspects they like. Then in Part 2 we’ll take a look at how this bill bends your cost curve.

Read more here.                blogsurfer.us