There will declamations of good and evil all day long. Cripes, this will continue right through the November elections – mostly initiated by Republican reactionaries – but, candyass Dems will respond by yodeling about their own willingness to sell out.
The healthcare reform measure passed by the House of Representatives on Sunday delivers some good news for drugmakers, device companies and even health insurers.
Among the changes in the legislation was a provision delaying hefty taxes on those three industries by at least a year…
* The pharmaceutical industry keeps its $80 billion agreement to provide savings and rebates. Its fees, to be divided among companies such as Pfizer and Merck & Co, would be delayed from 2010 to 2011, increasing from the initial $2.3 billion a year to $2.7 billion.
* Overall, wider insurance coverage could help offset the costs by providing more potential customers.
* Drugmakers warded off deeper price cuts in the Medicare program for the elderly. The House had sought to fully close the so-called “doughnut hole” where coverage drops temporarily after reaching a certain limit, but the bill maintains the industry’s 50-percent discount. The government will pay for another 25-percent discount…
* Hospitals, which include companies such as Universal Health Services and Tenet Healthcare, say they kept a $155 billion, 10-year deal to accept lower government payments from Medicare and Medicaid in exchange for an expected boost in insured customers…
* Private Medicare plans called Medicare Advantage would see their payments frozen in 2011, then lowered in 2012. The plans, which can offer more benefits than traditional Medicare coverage, would also have to spend at least 85 cents out of every dollar on medical costs — leaving 15 cents toward overhead and salaries, among other things.
* Consumer protection rules would change the way companies do business, banning denial of coverage for preexisting medical conditions and ending lifetime coverage limits. Some curbs would be expanded to all health insurance plans six months after the bill passes, while others take effect in 2014…
* Lawmakers have said roughly 30 million more Americans could have insurance with the reform…
* Overall, companies that make generic versions of brand-name drugs see little direct help, although increasing insurance access may help more people buy medicine.
The United States is so insular, trapped inside the politics and mores of isolation, religion and 19th Century ideology that it makes me nauseous.
The first serious, educated discussion I had about comparative health care systems was with an upper-middle-class manufacturers rep living in a stodgy conservative middle-European country – who gave me a ride while hitch-hiking across Switzerland in 1971. He felt the United States was backwards, run by ill-educated pimps and hustlers in Congress.
His daughter had a congenital ailment which he had treated at the best possible clinic – across the border in Germany. His national insurance picked up the tab, regardless. The sort of coverage he had then – almost 40 years ago – was better than anything proposed by the Democratic Party, today.
Eideard 