Two Sides to Every (Health Care Reform) Debate

In this past Sunday's New York Times, the op-ed section focused on health care reform and how there are two sides to each equation. The articles are written by experts in the field and include Jonathan Gruber and Paul Ginsburg, among others. Their writing focuses on three topics: taxing health benefits, defensive medicine, and trimming hospital/health care costs. The article can be found here. The introduction from the Times:

President Obama has pledged to reform health care, but overhauling the system to offer every person in the United States coverage is no easy task. Op-Ed editors asked experts for advice on how to lower health care costs and pay for comprehensive coverage.

CMS Hospital Compare Website Revised

CMS has recently revised its Hospital Compare website to now report readmission and mortality data. The Web site now includes information on how frequently patients return to a hospital after being discharged, a possible indicator of how well the facility did the first time around. The site is www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

WSJ - Support Slips for Tax on Employee Health Benefits

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Senators on the Finance Committee are cooling on the idea of taxing employee health benefits for the first time ever. The idea is unpopular with many voters, although the idea is not being completely swept off the table. To finance reform, the Committee is now looking at taxing the wealthy - or limiting tax deductions - to help subsidize expanded coverage. The article can be found here.

HR Policy Association Comprehensive Health Care Reform Packet

The HR Policy Association now has a page devoted to comprehensive health reform from an HR professional perspective. This site gives HR professionals up-to-date resources for information on the health reform debate while also showcasing the Association's own efforts in affecting reform. The page includes policy briefs and memoranda; summaries of the Congressional reform proposals; letters to Congress/Administration; HR Policy Association hearing testimony; legislative/regulatory history; press releases; and other useful information.

The page can be found on the HR Policy Association website.

EBRI 2009 Health Confidence Survey

As part of their monthly issue brief series, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) released The 2009 Health Confidence Survey: Public Opinion on Health Reform Varies; Strong Support for Insurance Market Reform and Public Plan Option, Mixed Response to Tax Cap.

Find the article here.

Laurel Pickering in the Wall Street Journal

An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal quotes Laurel Pickering, NYBGH's Executive Director, as she participated last week in a roundtable hosted by the Foundation for Art & Healing. The article showcases how art can help people heal and can be found here. Convening thought leaders from the medical, academic, public health, arts, and business communities, the Arts and the Heart Campaign roundtable was held to explore the relationships between creative expression and healing while also discussing how greater recognition and practice of the concept can happen. Some of the other roundtable participants included Robert Butler, MD, the founder of the International Longevity Center; Steven Safyer, MD, CEO of Montefiore Medical Center; and Edward Hirsch, a poet and the President of the Guggenheim Foundation.

Health Care Reform - Issue Comparisons

As the House and Senate release and mark-up their bills for health reform, one can easily lose track of who's proposing what. The Kaiser Family Foundation and the RAND Corporation have created useful and easy-to-use health reform issue comparison tools and publications on their websites to help sift through the debate.

Kaiser: http://healthreform.kff.org/
RAND: http://www.randcompare.org/