HillaryCare Installment Plan

Wall Street Opinion Journal April 24, 2007

The Schip strategy for government-run health care.

Any doubt that “universal” health care has returned as a dominant political issue vanished with last month’s forum for Democratic Presidential candidates in Nevada. “We need a movement,” Hillary Clinton declared. “We need people to make this the No. 1 voting issue in the ’08 election.”

She and her friends in Congress are already working on it, notably by proposing to greatly expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. “Schip” was enacted in 1997 as Bill Clinton’s health-care consolation prize after the implosion of HillaryCare. It expires in September without reauthorization, and Democrats are using the opening to turn it into another giant middle-class health-care entitlement. Call it HillaryCare on the installment plan.

Schip was conceived–or at least sold–as a way to insure children from low-income families that aren’t poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. Included as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Schip began as a federal block grant of about $40 billion over 10 years. States receive an annual fixed federal contribution. Then they match the funds and design their own programs, by expanding Medicaid, creating a separate Schip program or some combination. States determine eligibility and benefits; some have premiums or co-pays, usually at negligible rates.
The Bush Administration wants to add $4.8 billion to the Schip budget, bringing it to $30 billion over the next five years. Democrats want to see that and raise by $50 billion to $60 billion. They pronounce Schip “underfunded”–and sure enough, 2007 funding already falls short of covering enrollees in 18 states by about $900 million.

But this “crisis” arose because some states have grossly exceeded Schip’s mandate. They are using the program to expand government-subsidized coverage well beyond poor kids–to children from wealthier families and even to adults. And they’re doing so even as some 8.3 million poor children continue to go uninsured.

. . . more

Related Posts:

Boo! What, you’re not scared?

I don’t think people are frightened by phrases such as “Hillarycare” anymore either.

It may be more frightening that the United States spends twice as much per capita on health care than any other modern industrial nation, but has health care outcomes that are no better. health Affairs writer, Ezra Klein, writes:

Canada, France, Great Britain, and Germany all cover their entire populations, and they do so for far less money than we spend. Indeed, Canada, whose system is the most costly of the group, spends only 52 percent per capita what we do.

The Health of Nations: “Here’s how Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and our own Veterans Health Administration manage to cover everybody at less cost and with better care than we do.”

It may be more frightening that 47 million uninsured Americans, and millions more who are under-insured, who face financial barriers that radically reduce their access to care. The Institute of Medicine estimates that lack of health insurance among people aged twenty-five to sixty-four causes 18,000 premature deaths annually.

It may also be frightening that

the Institute of Medicine also estimates that up to 98,000 Americans are killed in hospitals every year by medical errors. In 2006, the IOM issued a new study that found that hospital patients in the United States experience an average of at least one medication error, such as receiving the wrong drug or the wrong dosage, every day they stay in the hospital.

All told, according to the RAND study, Americans receive appropriate care from their doctors only about half of the time, and the results are deadly. In addition to the 98,000 killed by medical errors, another 126,000 die from their doctor’s failure to observe evidence-based protocols for just four common conditions: hypertension, heart attacks, pneumonia, and colorectal cancer.

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0705.longman.html

It may be more frightening that 20-22% of all revenue collected by Hospitals is siphoned off by billing and insurance-related activities.

It may be more frightening that this week the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare predicted that the hospital insurance portion of the Medicare Trust fund will begin running deficits in 2013 and that over time, the cost of the entire program will consume a staggering percentage of National GDP. The Trustees report:

Medicare’s cost was smaller in 2006-3.1 percent of GDP- but is projected to surpass the cost of Social Security in 2028, growing to 11.3 percent of GDP in 2081 when it will be 80 percent larger than Social Security’s cost. In 2081, the combined cost of the programs will represent 17.6 percent of GDP. As a point of comparison, in 2006 all Federal receipts amounted to 18.5 percent of GDP.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html

Ezra Klein reminds us:

Medicare is just another way of saying “health care,” as the exact problems that bedevil our public insurance afflict our private insurance, we just don’t issue yearly reports on their effects.

http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/health_care_wil.html

It may be more frightening that individuals considering starting new businesses face health insurance premiums of $800-$1,200 per employee monthly, that is if they have no pre-existing medical conditions.

It may be more frightening that General Motors massive health care obligations to its workers and retirees put it at a competitive disadvantage to its foreign competitors, and represent an unfunded liability that dwarves the net worth of the company itself.

The most frightening thing of all is the blind faith that the Wall Steet Journal and the Republican party have in the market and the profit motive alone to correct the disturbing problems described above.

1 thought on “HillaryCare Installment Plan”

Dean Scourtes

April 25, 2007 at 6:01 pm

Boo! What, you’re not scared?

I don’t think people are frightened by phrases such as “Hillarycare” anymore either.

It may be more frightening that the United States spends twice as much per capita on health care than any other modern industrial nation, but has health care outcomes that are no better. health Affairs writer, Ezra Klein, writes:

Canada, France, Great Britain, and Germany all cover their entire populations, and they do so for far less money than we spend. Indeed, Canada, whose system is the most costly of the group, spends only 52 percent per capita what we do.

The Health of Nations: “Here’s how Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and our own Veterans Health Administration manage to cover everybody at less cost and with better care than we do.”

It may be more frightening that 47 million uninsured Americans, and millions more who are under-insured, who face financial barriers that radically reduce their access to care. The Institute of Medicine estimates that lack of health insurance among people aged twenty-five to sixty-four causes 18,000 premature deaths annually.

It may also be frightening that

the Institute of Medicine also estimates that up to 98,000 Americans are killed in hospitals every year by medical errors. In 2006, the IOM issued a new study that found that hospital patients in the United States experience an average of at least one medication error, such as receiving the wrong drug or the wrong dosage, every day they stay in the hospital.

All told, according to the RAND study, Americans receive appropriate care from their doctors only about half of the time, and the results are deadly. In addition to the 98,000 killed by medical errors, another 126,000 die from their doctor’s failure to observe evidence-based protocols for just four common conditions: hypertension, heart attacks, pneumonia, and colorectal cancer.

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0705.longman.html

It may be more frightening that 20-22% of all revenue collected by Hospitals is siphoned off by billing and insurance-related activities.

It may be more frightening that this week the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare predicted that the hospital insurance portion of the Medicare Trust fund will begin running deficits in 2013 and that over time, the cost of the entire program will consume a staggering percentage of National GDP. The Trustees report:

Medicare’s cost was smaller in 2006-3.1 percent of GDP- but is projected to surpass the cost of Social Security in 2028, growing to 11.3 percent of GDP in 2081 when it will be 80 percent larger than Social Security’s cost. In 2081, the combined cost of the programs will represent 17.6 percent of GDP. As a point of comparison, in 2006 all Federal receipts amounted to 18.5 percent of GDP.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html

Ezra Klein reminds us:

Medicare is just another way of saying “health care,” as the exact problems that bedevil our public insurance afflict our private insurance, we just don’t issue yearly reports on their effects.

http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/health_care_wil.html

It may be more frightening that individuals considering starting new businesses face health insurance premiums of $800-$1,200 per employee monthly, that is if they have no pre-existing medical conditions.

It may be more frightening that General Motors massive health care obligations to its workers and retirees put it at a competitive disadvantage to its foreign competitors, and represent an unfunded liability that dwarves the net worth of the company itself.

The most frightening thing of all is the blind faith that the Wall Steet Journal and the Republican party have in the market and the profit motive alone to correct the disturbing problems described above.

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