A Selection Of Editorials And Opinions

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 17 Jun 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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You Be Obama New York Times
Every player in this game has a favorite idea, and you are open to all of them. The liberals want a public plan, and you're for it. The budget guys are for slashing Medicare reimbursements, and you're for that. The doctors want relief from lawsuits, and you're open to it. The Republicans want you to cap the tax exemption on employee health benefits. You campaigned against that, but you're still privately for it (David Brooks, 6/15).

Healthy Savings The Baltimore Sun
One way to improve outcomes while reducing costs is to establish a Medicare follow-up care benefit. This benefit would support patients as they transition from the hospital to their own home or another setting, such as a skilled nursing facility or rehabilitation center (Tiffany M. Lundquist, 6/16).

Hope and Experience The Chicago Tribune
Costs clearly need to be controlled. But the Democrats' solution to all this government excess is to create . . . another government-run health plan (6/16).

The Trouble With Conrad's Compromise CBS News
They have been hard to establish or extend, and when they have been established, they've been under constant siege from doctors and insurers and eventually largely operated as private insurance plans or weak purchasing arrangements. It is hard to see how any sort of decentralized cooperative model could do what a public plan can do (Jacob S. Hacker, 6/15).

For Republicans, A Health Care Opportunity The National Review
Imagine that a Republican president had tried to cut Medicare and Medicaid spending by $625 billion over a decade. We doubt the story would have been relegated to the back pages of the major newspapers, as President Obama's proposal was yesterday (6/16).

Public Option Salt Lake Tribune
A public plan that would not have to turn a profit or pay taxes should be able to offer insurance that is more affordable than private plans. But neither the president nor the other Democrats who support the so-called "public option" have supplied many details (6/15).

Health Reform Must Include Legal Reform Charleston Daily Mail
The president might have more luck selling his vision if he cut medical costs up front instead. One way to do that is to end the titanic struggle between the medical profession and the legal profession, which has played out in every state of the union (6/16).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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