The Senate's Health Care Plan: Try Everything

Donald Berwick says 20-30% of health care spending helps no one

(NEWSER) - Between 20% and 30% of all US health care spending is pure “waste,” according to departing Medicare and Medicaid chief Donald Berwick. “Much is done that does not help patients at all, and many physicians know it,” Berwick said in an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, his last day on the job. He cited overtreatment of patients, the failure to coordinate care, complex administrative systems, burdensome regulations, and fraud as the main reasons for the “extremely high level of waste.” More»

Sacrifices in store for Pelosi and Co.—and maybe for the industry

(NEWSER) - The House will need to make a lot of last-minute sacrifices when combining its health care bill with the Senate’s, but if legislators play their cards right, the final bill could be a stronger beast. The Senate must stand by its strong cost control mechanisms, writes David Leonhardt of the New York Times . The “Cadillac tax,” the independent Medicare commission, and vouchers that give people with employer-purchased health insurance access to the exchanges are all essential. More»

Hey, Jane Hamsher: A better bill is not coming along, and this ain't bad

(NEWSER) - Ezra Klein isn’t “sure there's much in the way of productive dialogue to be had” with liberal firebrand Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake concerning her call yesterday to kill the Senate health care reform bill, but he’ll try anyway. Hamsher’s list is “misleading,” her “facts are off,” and she “obscures the affected population," Klein writes in the Washington Post in his own 10-point rebuttal. But worst, she implies that the bill is worse than the world in which we kill the bill. More»

Measure that should have saved money will cost an arm and a leg

(NEWSER) - The Senate health reform bill is all fire and brimstone for the folks over at Firedoglake . The “con job” legislation “isn’t a ‘starter home,’ it’s a sink hole,” Jane Hamsher writes, and “it needs to die so something else can take its place.” Why, you ask? Ten reasons:

• $$$: "Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations."
• More $$$: "Penalties of up to 2% of your annual income" if you don't buy insurance.

Say legislation isn't aggressive enough on fee-for-service model

(NEWSER) - Some Democrats in the Senate are worried that reform legislation under consideration doesn't do enough to rein in out-of-control health care spending. President Obama has promised $2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years, but critics say the proposed changes aren't nearly aggressive enough on the current pay-per-visit system favored by doctors and hospital groups. More»