This post comes from CCN Money. “The fight over health care overhaul is on track to be the most expensive issue ever to hit the hallways of Congress.The bill for lobbyists, television ads and political donations has topped $375 million — or enough to pay the entire insurance tab for about 30,000 families a year.

The big spenders range from drug companies, hospitals and doctor groups to organizations that advocate for unions, immigrants and retirees.

The largest chunk has gone to direct lobbying of lawmakers and other policymakers. In the first half of 2009, the health care industry spent nearly $280 million on lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

This posts comes from MSNBC.

“Jacqueline Ruess was lying on a bed inside a hospital in Boca Raton, Florida, still woozy from anesthesia but hoping that, maybe just this once, she’d caught a break.

She’d had laparoscopic surgery in order to examine a growth her gynecologist thought might be ovarian cancer. Ruess, who was 34 at the time, in the fall of 2001, feared that her two young boys, whose father died from a congenital heart defect three years earlier, were on the verge of losing her as well.

“It was probably the darkest week of my life since my husband passed away,” she recalls.

But as Ruess regained consciousness, she saw her own mother at her bedside, looking relieved. She began to process what she was hearing: You’re going to be OK. The growth was on the fallopian tube, not her ovary — a far less worrisome situation. Soon after, a pathology report would confirm that the tumor itself was benign.

“The only thing I could think about was my boys,” Ruess says, “and the great relief in knowing I was going to be around to raise them after all.”

But four months after Ruess’s medical crisis passed, she faced a financial one. The Insurers Administrative Corporation (IAC), the company in Phoenix that managed Ruess’s health care policy, completed what it says was a routine review of her records and discovered what it called evidence of a preexisting gynecological condition.

Because Ruess had not disclosed the symptom on her application, her insurer said she had never been eligible for coverage of gynecological problems. The result: Ruess was on the hook for the cost of her surgery, which, including doctor and hospital bills, amounted to more than $15,000.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

Google Health https://www.google.com/health is online after a year and a half since Adam Bosworth announced a health product from Google. Google Health proposes to:

• Organize your health information all in one place
• Gather your medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies
• Keep your doctors up to date about your health
• Be more informed about important health issues
• According to the Google Health FAQ, “You can store records of current and past medications, allergies, procedures, immunizations, conditions, and test results. You can enter any of this information on your own, or you can import your medical records from a list of Google Health integrated partners, such as hospitals or neighborhood pharmacies.”

Google Health has been designed as a PHR (Personal Health Record), but it is also a bit of a different model. “We believe it’s not enough to offer a place where you can store, manage, and share your health information. You need to act on your health information to better manage your health needs on a daily basis. This is why we provide a directory of online health services to you. You must elect to sign up with a service and decide what level of personal data you want to share in exchange for the customized services those companies offer”, is mentioned on Google Health pages.

This post comes from Fox News and AP Wire Services.

Aetna’s SmartSource search site would ramp up the way electronic health information is used, even as privacy concerns rise with an increased interest among companies to find new applications for electronic health records.

SmartSource crunches data such as gender, age, ZIP code, employer, health care plan and information from the customer’s personal health records.

The search engine generates information tailored to individuals about diseases and medical conditions, treatments, health care costs and local health care providers.

Aetna will make the search engine available as a pilot program this year to between 20 and 25 employers with up to 1.5 million eligible employees, and make the service available to more customers next year.

Healthline Networks, a privately held San Francisco-based health search engine that was founded in 1999 as YourDoctor.com, is providing the technology platform for Aetna’s search engine.

The Hartford-based insurer is banking on strong interest in Web-based health information and the drive to make patients better informed and in charge of their own health care.

But privacy advocates have been wary about electronic health records, warning about possible security breaches even though insurers insist information is secure.

Aetna officials said the Web site uses encryption standards similar to the banking industry and access to its Web site takes customers to Healthline’s secure site.

Mohit Ghose, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group of 1,300 health insurance plans, said insurance customers are protected by many safeguards, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly called HIPAA, and state privacy laws.

But Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom in Washington, D.C., said the new ways health records are used raises concerns. For example, customers should be notified when their health information is transferred, whether from Aetna to Healthline Networks or other companies, she said.

Blevins also said it’s not clear that HIPAA covers companies that store electronic records, and that the federal law may need to be updated.

Google Inc. announced last month it will begin storing medical records of a few thousand people. The service is not yet available publicly. And Microsoft Corp. last year introduced a service called HealthVault that manages health information.

 

This post comes from Philly.com.

“A majority of doctors support the idea of a national health insurance program, according to a new report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Overall, 59 percent of the 2,193 physicians surveyed by researchers at Indiana University said they now “support government legislation to establish national health insurance.”

The level of support was highest among psychiatrists (83 percent), pediatricians (71 percent), and emergency room doctors (69 percent). A majority of general surgeons also supported such a program to extend coverage to all, including the estimated 47 million uninsured Americans.

“Across the board, more physicians feel that our fragmented and for-profit insurance system is obstructing good patient care,” said the study’s coauthor, Ronald T. Ackermann, associate director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research at Indiana’s medical school.

The survey also asked the doctors about state-level efforts, such as in Pennsylvania, to expand access to health insurance. It found that 55 percent of respondents supported such measures, although they expressed a preference for a national approach.

In December, the American College of Physicians, the second-largest doctors’ organization in the nation, endorsed a so-called single-payer health insurance system for the first time.”

This post comes from the Wausau Daily Herald. Imagine how many deaths lack of health insurance contribute to in California if there are this many in Wisconsin. ” Having health insurance isn’t a nicety — it might be a matter of life and death, according to a new report.

Nearly five people between the ages of 25 and 64 die each week in Wisconsin because they lack health insurance coverage, according to a new report by Families USA, a national organization promoting the interests of health care consumers.

“Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of Wisconsinites to an early death, simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. “The conclusions are sadly clear — a lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many Wisconsinites.”

Though the report did not examine the role of not having enough insurance plays in premature death, insufficient health coverage likely increases the death toll because people might delay or forego health care because of the cost, said Robert Kraig, program director for Citizen Action of Wisconsin.

Read the fully story in tomorrow’s print and online editions of the Wausau Daily Herald.”

This post comes from CNNMoney.

Consumer-directed health plans are gaining traction among America’s largest employers - and their workers - as evidence emerges about the potential costs savings, according to a survey released Thursday.

Around half of large U.S. employers - 47% - now offer a CDHP, up from 39% last year. By 2009, 54% of companies plan to offer a CDHP, according to study by consulting firm Watson Wyatt and the National Business Group on Health, or NBGH, a nonprofit association of nearly 300 large employers, including General Motors Corp. (GM) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT).

CDHPs are aimed at lowering insurance premiums for individuals and employers by giving consumers more control over - and a bigger stake in - health spending. CDHPs pair a high-deductible health plan with personal health savings accounts - typically a health savings account, or HSA - that can be used to fund medical expenses not covered under the plan on a tax-free basis. The Bush administration says such arrangements can make health care more affordable for American families.

Enrollment in CDHPs is increasing as a larger number of employers offer these types of plans and employees becomes more comfortable with these relatively new products. Around 15% of workers at employers that offer CDHPs are currently enrolled in such plans, up from 10% in 2007, according to the WW/NBGH survey. The survey involved 435 companies employing about 8.4 million workers in the U.S.

Faced with inflation-topping health-care cost increases, American employers are looking for ways to reduce medical expenses. Overall, companies with a CDHP saw healthcare costs increase by 5.5% over the past two years - a lower rate than the 7% increase experienced by companies without a CDHP. Enrollment rates in CDHPs “are strongly linked” to lower health-care cost trends, according to the study. Employers with at least half of their workforce enrolled in a CDHP had a two-year median cost trend of 3.6%, almost half that of companies without a CDHP. The survey didn’t examine the cost-benefits to employees.

“A CDHP offers a way for companies to control costs while increasing employee accountability for health care decisions,” said

Ted Nussbaum, Watson Wyatt’s director of group and health care consulting in North America.

The study’s authors note that the slowdown in cost increases is likely to be more pronounced during the first few years of adoption of a CDHP and might not reflect a sustainable trend. Educating workers about their health-care options and dedicating more resources to wellness programs that nip health problems in the bud before they develop into costly chronic conditions is another important factor.

Companies with more than 20% or more of their workers enrolled in CDHPs are more likely to offer employees to manage their own health than businesses who don’t offer these plans. Such tools include side-by-side plan and healthcare- provider comparisons and personalized reminders for preventive procedures, such as annual physicals.

“Actively involving more workers in their health care and giving them the resources to make educated decisions can be a challenge, but it should be embraced. The end result can be a mutually beneficial system for both companies and their workers,” says NBGH President

Helen Darling.

Counting The Cost

CDHPs have lower premiums than traditional types of plans, but enrollees have to pay more out-of-pocket before their insurance kicks in. Employees can offset these out-pocket expense with funds saved in their HSAs. Health status, income and any employer contributions are important factors to consider when deciding whether a CDHP is the right choice.

For instance, such arrangements tend to favor the young and healthy, those who receive employer contributions to their HSAs or those who can afford to cover out-of-pocket medical expense while fully funding their HSAs. HSAs are less favorable for lower-income unhealthy people because out-of-pocket expenses increase with the amount of health-care services you use, and the tax advantages aren’t as great for people in lower brackets. In this scenario, paying more up front in premiums is likely to be a more cost-effective option, financial advisors say.

Typically, employers offer CDHPs as an option alongside traditional types of insurance plans, such as preferred-provider organizations, PPO, and health maintenance plans, HMOs. Only 6% of companies report 100% enrollment in a CDHP, but that number is expected to rise to 9% in 2009.

This article comes from The New York Times.

After more than a decade of struggle, the House on Wednesday passed a bill requiring most group health plans to provide more generous coverage for treatment of mental illnesses, comparable to what they provide for physical illnesses.

The vote was 268 to 148, with 47 Republicans joining 221 Democrats in support of the measure.

The Senate has passed a similar bill requiring equivalence, or parity, in coverage of mental and physical ailments. Federal law now allows insurers to discriminate, and most do so, by setting higher co-payments or stricter limits on mental health benefits.

“Illness of the brain must be treated just like illness anywhere else in the body,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. Supporters of the House bill, including consumer groups and the American Psychiatric Association, said it would be a boon to many of the 35 million Americans who experience disabling symptoms of mental disorders each year.

Insurers and employers supported the Senate bill. Many opposed the House version, saying it would drive up costs.

President Bush endorsed the principle of mental health parity in 2002. But on Wednesday, the White House opposed the House bill, saying it “would effectively mandate coverage of a broad range of diseases.”

Both bills would outlaw health insurance practices that set lower limits on treatment or higher co-payments for mental health services than for other medical care. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Are you interested in learning more about your current state of fitness? Wait no more! Take a fitness quiz or check out the 2008 National Body Challenge courtesy of Discovery Health and Fallbrook Hospital.