(Promoted for the usual reasons. – promoted by JulieWaters)
Today I launched a health care initiative to implement a health care system that will relieve the financial burden on government, families and businesses caused by sharply escalating health care costs so Vermont can concentrate on job creation. It starts with a commitment to seek a federal waiver to allow Vermont to implement health care for all.
As governor, I will work aggressively to make Vermont a national leader in health care reform once again. I will work with our federal delegation to get a waiver to allow Vermont to ensure that every Vermonter has access to the doctors, medicines and care they need
But I am realistic. I realize that waiver will not come overnight, but Vermonters need help right now. That’s why I have outlined the following steps to help cut health insurance abuses and reduce health care costs. We can implement these swiftly when I am governor.
Eliminate Insurance Company Abuses and Costly Health Care Overhead
The Journal Health Affairs estimated that medical paperwork and the labor costs to fill and file that paperwork costs doctors and patients more than $7 billion nationwide, including millions in wrongly denied claims because of insurance company loopholes designed to confuse. I will launch a pilot program statewide with the largest hospitals and doctors groups to implement standardized billing procedures that will reduce overhead in health care, cost consumers less and eliminate headaches for medical professionals.
A Public Option in Vermont to Compete
The federal health care reform efforts mean that soon nearly 75,000 Vermonter will have access to
more affordable health care, more than 18,000 Vermont seniors will see the “donut-hole” in Medicare Part D cut in half, and 11,500 small businesses will qualify for tax credits to offset payments towards employees’ health care costs. While we need to go even further in Vermont, as I outlined above with a self-insurance system, I am excited to implement the Health Insurance Exchange component of health care reform when I am governor.
As early as March 2011, states will apply for federal grants to design health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals buying health insurance on their own. The exchanges will look just like Expedia or Orbitz, where consumers can choose the type of plan they want and see different options. This ensures that they will find the lowest price possible. As governor, I will make sure Vermont leads the nation with an innovative state health care exchange that includes a public option.
Until we can implement a universal system, this is another step forward to make sure the health
insurance monopoly ends and a level playing field is created for consumers.
Quality, Affordable Prescription Drugs
Reforms at the federal level make Medicare Part D more affordable, but seniors, families and business are still paying too much, and pharmaceutical companies’ profits continue to soar. As governor, I will institute a cross-border program to make sure Vermonters pay the same costs for safe, quality prescription drugs that our Canadian neighbors pay. There have been bipartisan efforts in Congress to make the importation of prescription drugs safe and legal.
Unfortunately, lobbyists continue to block these efforts. As governor, I will fight the drug companies to make affordable, quality prescription drugs available from Canada for Vermonters.
I have serious concerns about one part of your proposal. There are already “standardized billing procedures” outlined in the Administrative Simplification sections of the 1996 HIPAA legislation, and in fact state medicaid systems like Vermont’s tend to be the least compliant among payers in terms of accommodating the standards.
If VT enacted its own “standard”, all provider facilities would have to then create a parallel programming track to meet these specs when claims go to Vermont rather than national commercial insurers or Medicare. Rather than save money, this proposal would add to the already mind-numbingly wasteful health care bureaucracy overhead.
I would urge you to look deeper into this issue and reconsider this plan before you promote it any further. We would be far better served in the effort to reduce waste if Vermont’s health care IT systems were updated to accommodate the existing standards followed to a large extent by all other payers.
Deb’s plan will probably run up against S.88, which Douglas let pass into law, and Dr. Hsiao’s designing three health care systems as part of that law, even though some of what she proposes overlaps with what s.88 calls for. Deb’s proposals sound ok here, but Hsiao’s will be far more complete. We’ll see.
the first line lost me …. “relieve the financial burden on government, families and businesses caused by sharply escalating health care costs so Vermont can concentrate on job creation.” So the solution Deb comes up with is that everyone pays less…. based upon federal tax subsidy?? when does that crutch fall out of the system??
Everyone looks at health care reform as paperwork reform. A lot like Jim=jobloss and his IT initiatives for state government that went to the brink of nowhere and did nothing…
Health care is more expensive every year because it is a cost that rises at the pace of innovation not inflation. Everyone wants the new MRI machine because it sees the tumor earlier. on and on… If INFLATION was the only issue, no big problem. The problem with the system is that there are too many kittens in the litter trying to all get fed from a limited resource… If a doctor clears up your cranial bleed, you dont care that she may make a million dollars a year, and everyone else helps to pay… Who cares that an asprin when you are IP at FAHC costs 5 bucks a piece??
The problem is that it is an industry without regulation and the insurance companies are just the straw men in the middle who pass along the increased costs in a pretty socialist fashion. We already have socialized medicine in Vermont….. its called Blue Cross/Blue Shield… if they can pay a CEO a gazillion dollars as a parting gift, they sure as hell aren’t nonprofit…
Get rid of the straw men and start to monitor costs… but it cant be done here in our little corner of the world only… the good folks will move on to greener areas if we start to take a lot of money out of the system… it has to be a national initiative…. why do you think our best doctors arent running up to Canada??? Salary limits…
NOW, lets talk about the minimum starting salary for a kid out of HS in the NBA being about 450000.00 per year… basketball ISNT brain surgery..
What sort of standardized procedures? Billing procedures for whom? How would they reduce overhead? Would they require existing entities to scrap their current billing system and replace it with another one? How would this interact with federal billing requirements?