Latest news with #healthreform
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
The NHS truths the Left don't want you to hear
Until very recently, Health Secretary Wes Streeting tried to market himself as a radical health reformer, who is not afraid to poke sacred cows. While his reform-minded rhetoric always remained at a highly-abstract and general level, Streeting deserved some credit for it, because he did not have to do this. He had the courage to say things which he knew would rub some people up the wrong way, not least the Corbynite wing of his own party. Sadly, that brief period of NHS candour is now officially over. Streeting, the self-styled reformer, is no more. He and his colleagues have fully retreated into their comfort zone. During the recent local election campaign, Labour distributed a leaflet that showed a mock medical bill, and a doctor holding up a credit card reader. The message was clear: vote for us, because this is what the other lot want to do to you. On Twitter/X, Labour are now frequently posting dire warnings about the alleged evils of insurance-based healthcare systems. This is exactly that old-school NHS cultism which Streeting used to disavow until five minutes ago. It may work for him. The NHS may be falling apart, but the cult around is still going strong. In the eyes of its keenest defenders, the NHS can do no wrong. They have quietly dropped the old cliché about the NHS being 'the envy of the word', and replaced it with a slightly more subtle version, which goes something like this: Once upon a time, the NHS used to be the best healthcare system in the world. But then, from 2010 on, it was systematically defunded. It was deliberately run into the ground, so that it can be privatised more easily. A privatised system would mean luxury healthcare for the rich, and Wild West medicine for the poor. None of these claims are true. Let's have a look at each of them in turn. 'The NHS used to be the best healthcare system in the world' The NHS was never the best healthcare system in the world. The idea that it ever was can be traced back to a ranking compiled by the Commonwealth Fund, an American healthcare think tank, which relies on a very unusual methodology, in which medical outcomes only account for a fifth of the total score. This matters, because on medical outcomes, the NHS has always been one of the worst-performing healthcare systems in the developed world – as even the Commonwealth Fund study shows. There is no turning point after which the NHS's performance suddenly deteriorated. It was just never good in the first place. '…it was systematically defunded' At the end of the 2010s, age-adjusted real NHS spending per capita was only marginally higher than it had been in the beginning of the decade. Put differently, the NHS budget only just about kept pace with population growth, population ageing, and inflation. This clearly constituted a slowdown in spending increases compared to the previous decade. But it does not constitute a 'defunding'. In any case: that period of relative spending restraint is already over again. The NHS budget was given a massive boost during the pandemic, which has only been partially reversed. Public healthcare spending in the UK stands at just under 9% of GDP: one of the highest levels in the world. '…so that it can be privatised…' Conspiracy theories about secret plans to privatise the NHS have been around for decades. I wrote a report on this three years ago, for which I went through the news archives, and I found warnings about the NHS's imminent demise from every year since 1980. But somehow, it never happens. The NHS remains an unusually state-centred system. Most healthcare systems, including tax-funded ones, use a mix of public, private for-profit and private non-profit providers. 'A privatised system would mean luxury healthcare for the rich, and Wild West medicine for the poor' There are no plans – secret or otherwise – to privatise the NHS. More's the pity. Because there is nothing wrong with private healthcare systems. There are good examples of private, insurance-based healthcare systems, most notably in the Netherlands and Switzerland, which are nothing like the dreaded system of the US. These systems cover everybody: poor people are exempt from health insurance premiums and co-payments. Under these systems, rich and poor alike get faster access to medical treatment, and better medical outcomes, than they would on the NHS. The only thing these people don't get is a naff feel-good mythology around their health systems.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Morgan Health CEO on Healthcare Costs, Drug Pricing Reforms
Morgan Health CEO Dan Mendelson discusses healthcare costs, getting entitlement pricing under control, and efforts to reform drug pricing on 'Bloomberg Open Interest.' (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Health coverage losses in Mass. may be even steeper
BOSTON (SHNS) – Tens of thousands of Bay Staters could lose subsidized health insurance through the Massachusetts Health Connector and premiums could rise for most other members under a suite of reforms in the U.S. House-approved reconciliation bill that Gov. Maura Healey dubbed 'devastating.' For months, officials and health care activists have been warning about major impacts to MassHealth from the Medicaid changes sought by Republicans in Congress, who want to fund tax cuts and rein in what they describe as wasteful spending. But the sweeping package that cleared the U.S. House last week features many other provisions that could also impact state-run health insurance marketplaces, including limitations on tax credit eligibility for some immigrants and a shorter open enrollment period. Massachusetts Health Connector Executive Director Audrey Morse Gasteier said as many as 100,000 people — roughly a quarter of all who get their health insurance through the marketplace — could lose their coverage. Taken alongside the roughly 150,000 other people who would lose MassHealth eligibility, Morse Gasteier said the House-approved bill would effectively double the number of Bay Staters without health insurance. '[That] is just such a heartbreaking and catastrophic future to contemplate after Massachusetts, for nearly 20 years, has been at the forefront and really all in on making sure everybody in Massachusetts has health coverage,' Morse Gasteier told the News Service. A Connector spokesperson said the most recent U.S. Census data estimates about 2.6% of Massachusetts residents are uninsured. State law requires Massachusetts residents to be insured, or pay a tax penalty. A June 2024 Center for Health Information and Analysis report estimated 1.7% of Massachusetts residents reported being uninsured in 2023, which translates into about 116,594 residents. Nearly 90% of the uninsured were adults aged 19 to 64, four-fifths were male, and two-thirds of the uninsured had a family income below 300% of the federal poverty level. Under the House bill, premiums are also likely to rise for those who remain insured through Connector plans, Morse Gasteier said. She also forecast a major financial impact, saying the policy changes in the bill and the expected end-of-year expiration of tax credits to help reduce premiums would cost residents and the state a combined $750 million per year. The sweeping federal legislation, which also touches on immigration, artificial intelligence and food aid, features numerous eligibility and spending reforms affecting Medicaid programs and health care marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act. Hannah Frigand, senior director of HelpLine and public policies at Health Care for All, described the package as a 'backdoor repeal of ACA marketplace coverage.' 'It seems like almost the intent of some of these decisions in here is to make it more difficult for the state to provide meaningful access to affordable coverage to individuals,' she said. 'It's so directly attacking [ACA marketplace coverage] in multiple ways to make it less affordable and less accessible.' Kaitlyn Kenney Walsh, vice president of policy and research at the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, said the policies 'will have significant deleterious impact on people getting health insurance coverage through the Health Connector who have come to rely on that coverage.' U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has targeted July 4 as the deadline to get a final bill to President Donald Trump's desk in order to provide tax relief 'as soon as possible.' 'We have a very delicate equilibrium that we reached on here,' Johnson said last week. 'A lot of work went into this to find exactly the right balance.' It's not clear how the U.S. Senate will respond to the proposal, and a handful of Republicans have voiced concerns that the measure either does not do enough to reduce the national deficit or would harm Medicaid recipients. One of the most significant changes in the bill limits the eligibility of many immigrants for tax credits to help reduce the cost of health insurance plans through state-run marketplaces like the Connector. Under the bill, only lawful permanent residents, Compact of Free Association (COFA) migrants or certain immigrants from Cuba would qualify for subsidized marketplace coverage. Morse Gasteier said that change would cut 55,000 to 60,000 other legally present immigrants in Massachusetts, like those seeking asylum, refugees and those waiting for Medicaid eligibility to begin, from the Health Connector's ranks. The federal bill would create new verification requirements for marketplaces, preventing enrollees from receiving tax credits toward premiums or cost-sharing reductions until their eligibility is confirmed, according to a detailed analysis by health policy nonprofit KFF. It would also largely limit auto-renewals and mandate marketplaces hold annual open enrollment periods from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15, about five weeks shorter than the Health Connector has offered for more than a decade. 'The bill would make it so that people need to verify information before they even see that they qualified for a lower-cost option, which will effectively mean that many people will just think they don't qualify and will not even try to submit documents because they think, 'I'm not eligible for subsidized coverage,' which will prevent many people from actually enrolling into insurance,' Frigand said. Morse Gasteier said the additional hurdles will 'make the process of obtaining and keeping coverage harder for everybody.' If fewer people are covered, she said, the remaining insured population will become higher-risk and higher-cost as a result. 'With respect to the administrative burdens and the red tape and the needless kind of sludge that this bill would erect for people that are trying to get and keep coverage, we would expect — just based on the way health insurance works and the way human behavior operates — younger and healthier people will probably not go through the trouble of making their way through all of these hoops,' she said. And when Bay Staters get ill or injured while not carrying insurance, the eventual health care costs will be 'borne by our entire health care system and passed on to premium payers through hospital debt that needs to be spread across the rest of the population,' Morse Gasteier said. Some of the impact could come not from the reconciliation package itself, but from congressional inaction. The pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act expanded ACA tax credits that help subsidize premium costs, and those credits are set to expire at the end of the year. The federal bill on the move does not extend those credits. 'It's been a really significant help to the state, to the ConnectorCare program and to individuals who are just over that cliff for eligibility for those premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act baseline,' Morse Gasteier said. State law requires most adults who can afford it to have health insurance coverage for the entire year or pay a tax penalty. Many Bay Staters get health insurance through their employers, and MassHealth provides coverage to those with low incomes or disabilities. The Connector offers plans for individuals who do not qualify for MassHealth and also cannot get covered through their employers, such as people working multiple part-time jobs or gig workers, as well as a subsidized ConnectorCare Program. Healey described the Connector's membership as 'people who make just a little bit too much to qualify for MassHealth but are still just getting by.' 'Who are these people? There are a lot of people running small businesses. They're people who are self-employed,' Healey said at a Tuesday event where she warned about major health care impacts from the reconciliation bill. 'The Republicans and Donald Trump want to slash funding for the Health Connector as well, and this is going to drive up premiums, force 100,000 families to go without coverage. So you can see, the proposed cuts, if they go through, they're devastating for Massachusetts residents, for families, for employers, for our economy, for people across the state.' Lawmakers and Healey agreed on a pilot expanding income eligibility for the ConnectorCare program from 300% of the federal poverty level to 500%. Both Healey and the House in their fiscal 2026 budget bills proposed extending the pilot another year, but the Senate did not include the extension in its redraft. Sen. Cindy Friedman, co-chair of Senate Committee on Steering and Policy, noted Wednesday that the pilot is available, albeit temporarily. 'I would like you to tell your patients that, while it lasts, the Connector in Massachusetts has raised their subsidies to 500% of the poverty level,' Friedman told the CEO of an organization that operates sexual and reproductive health clinics. 'And that has made a real profound difference in people getting into health care.' WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Live Updates: Trump Lands in Qatar After Meeting Militant Who Now Leads Syria
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, will also be asked about the huge reductions he has already imposed on research grants and jobs. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose drastic overhaul of the federal health apparatus has left scientists and patients reeling, will face a demand from the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee on Wednesday to explain to Americans how his reforms 'will make their lives easier, not harder.' Mr. Kennedy will testify on Capitol Hill for the first time as health secretary, appearing back to back before the House and the Senate to promote President Trump's budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. But he will also be asked to defend the huge reductions he has already imposed on research grants and jobs, which key Democrats have condemned as part of what they call Mr. Trump's 'war on science.' Mr. Trump has published only the broad outlines of his budget plan, which calls for deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Kennedy is expected to say that the cuts will save money 'without impacting critical services,' according to remarks he intends to deliver to the House Appropriations Committee. The budget blueprint, Mr. Kennedy's remarks say, 'recognizes the fiscal challenges our country faces today, and the need to update and redirect our investments to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.' The remake of the health department, engineered in part by Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency, includes cutting 20,000 jobs — one quarter of the health work force. It also collapses entire agencies, including those devoted to mental health and addiction treatment, and emergency preparedness, into a new, ill-defined 'Administration for a Healthy America.' Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and health committee chairman, is expected to call on Mr. Kennedy to articulate 'a clearly defined plan or objective,' according to an excerpt from his prepared remarks. Mr. Cassidy voted to confirm Mr. Kennedy despite intense misgivings about his views on vaccines. Mr. Cassidy asked Mr. Kennedy to testify about the job cuts at the health department last month, but the secretary did not appear. 'Much of the conversation around H.H.S.'s agenda has been set by anonymous sources in the media and individuals with a bias against the president,' Mr. Cassidy's remarks say. 'Americans need direct reassurance from the administration, from you Mr. Secretary, that its reforms will make their lives easier, not harder.' That may be a tall order. A recent poll by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, found that a majority of the public opposed major cuts to staff and spending at the nation's health agencies. A majority of Americans said the Trump administration was 'recklessly making broad cuts to programs and staff, including some that are necessary for agencies to function.' In anticipation of the hearing, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the ranking member on the health committee, released a report on Tuesday that accused Mr. Trump of waging an 'unprecedented, illegal and outrageous attack on science and scientists.' The report found, for instance, that Mr. Trump cut cancer research by 31 percent over the first three months of this year, compared to the same time frame last year. 'Trump's war on science is an attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer,' Mr. Sanders said in a statement. 'The American people do not want us to slash cancer research in order to give more tax breaks for billionaires.' Mr. Kennedy, one of the nation's most vocal vaccine skeptics, is also likely to face questions about his management of a measles outbreak that began in West Texas, which has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult, and has now sickened more than 1,000 people in 30 states, according to the C.D.C. Mr. Kennedy has offered only a tepid endorsement of vaccination. He has acknowledged that vaccines are an effective way of preventing the spread of measles. But he has insisted that the choice to vaccinate should be voluntary. He has instead promoted treating the disease after infection with alternative therapies, including cod liver oil, which contains vitamin A — a remedy that doctors said had sickened some children who took too much of it. In the House, where Mr. Kennedy will appear before the Appropriations Committee, Democrats will argue that he and Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk are destroying 'the crown jewels of our health system,' according to a Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview lawmakers' remarks. Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, is likely to focus on cuts to scientific studies aimed at understanding and developing treatments for diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. The aide said that cutting basic research funded by N.I.H. is 'destroying the pipeline of future medical treatments.' Democrats will also press Mr. Kennedy on how the cuts are affecting clinical trials. Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who serves on the health committee but is also the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, hosted a round-table discussion last week at Seattle Children's Research Institute to put a spotlight, her office said, on 'what's at stake for patients and families as Trump takes a wrecking ball to this research.' In an emailed statement on Tuesday, Ms. Murray complained that Mr. Kennedy was 'overdue to testify' after 'no-showing' when Mr. Cassidy invited him in April.
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Kennedy to Defend H.H.S. Overhaul as Democrats Denounce ‘War on Science'
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose drastic overhaul of the federal health apparatus has left scientists and patients reeling, will face a demand from the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee on Wednesday to explain to Americans how his reforms 'will make their lives easier, not harder.' Mr. Kennedy will testify on Capitol Hill for the first time as health secretary, appearing back to back before the House and the Senate to promote President Trump's budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. But he will also be asked to defend the huge reductions he has already imposed on research grants and jobs, which key Democrats have condemned as part of what they call Mr. Trump's 'war on science.' Mr. Trump has published only the broad outlines of his budget plan, which calls for deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Kennedy is expected to say that the cuts will save money 'without impacting critical services,' according to remarks he intends to deliver to the House Appropriations Committee. The budget blueprint, Mr. Kennedy's remarks say, 'recognizes the fiscal challenges our country faces today, and the need to update and redirect our investments to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.' The remake of the health department, engineered in part by Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency, includes cutting 20,000 jobs — one quarter of the health work force. It also collapses entire agencies, including those devoted to mental health and addiction treatment, and emergency preparedness, into a new, ill-defined 'Administration for a Healthy America.' Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and health committee chairman, is expected to call on Mr. Kennedy to articulate 'a clearly defined plan or objective,' according to an excerpt from his prepared remarks. Mr. Cassidy voted to confirm Mr. Kennedy despite intense misgivings about his views on vaccines. Mr. Cassidy asked Mr. Kennedy to testify about the job cuts at the health department last month, but the secretary did not appear. 'Much of the conversation around H.H.S.'s agenda has been set by anonymous sources in the media and individuals with a bias against the president,' Mr. Cassidy's remarks say. 'Americans need direct reassurance from the administration, from you Mr. Secretary, that its reforms will make their lives easier, not harder.' That may be a tall order. A recent poll by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, found that a majority of the public opposed major cuts to staff and spending at the nation's health agencies. A majority of Americans said the Trump administration was 'recklessly making broad cuts to programs and staff, including some that are necessary for agencies to function.' In anticipation of the hearing, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the ranking member on the health committee, released a report on Tuesday that accused Mr. Trump of waging an 'unprecedented, illegal and outrageous attack on science and scientists.' The report found, for instance, that Mr. Trump cut cancer research by 31 percent over the first three months of this year, compared to the same time frame last year. 'Trump's war on science is an attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer,' Mr. Sanders said in a statement. 'The American people do not want us to slash cancer research in order to give more tax breaks for billionaires.' Mr. Kennedy, one of the nation's most vocal vaccine skeptics, is also likely to face questions about his management of a measles outbreak that began in West Texas, which has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult, and has now sickened more than 1,000 people in 30 states, according to the C.D.C. Mr. Kennedy has offered only a tepid endorsement of vaccination. He has acknowledged that vaccines are an effective way of preventing the spread of measles. But he has insisted that the choice to vaccinate should be voluntary. He has instead promoted treating the disease after infection with alternative therapies, including cod liver oil, which contains vitamin A — a remedy that doctors said had sickened some children who took too much of it. In the House, where Mr. Kennedy will appear before the Appropriations Committee, Democrats will argue that he and Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk are destroying 'the crown jewels of our health system,' according to a Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview lawmakers' remarks. Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, is likely to focus on cuts to scientific studies aimed at understanding and developing treatments for diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. The aide said that cutting basic research funded by N.I.H. is 'destroying the pipeline of future medical treatments.' Democrats will also press Mr. Kennedy on how the cuts are affecting clinical trials. Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who serves on the health committee but is also the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, hosted a round-table discussion last week at Seattle Children's Research Institute to put a spotlight, her office said, on 'what's at stake for patients and families as Trump takes a wrecking ball to this research.' In an emailed statement on Tuesday, Ms. Murray complained that Mr. Kennedy was 'overdue to testify' after 'no-showing' when Mr. Cassidy invited him in April.
