WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are going to reveal to the public next week what kind of health care reform they want instead of Obamacare. In anticipation, we thought a preview of conservative health policy ideas was in order.

Before anyone gets too excited, the House GOP task force handpicked by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to tackle the thorny issue of "replacing" Obamacare isn't going to introduce legislation or anything like that.

Rather, Ryan will issue a broad outline Wednesday, which will differ somehow from all the other broad outlines congressional Republican leaders have tossed off since 2009, when the debate over the Affordable Care Act began.

It's only been seven years, so they'll surely tell everyone what they really want to do, how much it's going to cost, how many people it will cover, etc., at some point. Next year? Or maybe 2018? (House Republican leaders are still ahead of their Senate counterparts, who don't appear to be making any effort to define an Obamacare replacement.)

What we already know from news reports -- and history -- is that the contents of the House GOP proposal likely will be cribbed from previous Republican health care plans, like the ones touted by President George W. Bush in 2004, by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during his White House bid in 2008, by then-House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) in 2009 and by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this year.Because these ideas are all old and warmed over, they've all been analyzed ad nauseam, which makes it possible to evaluate the Ryan-backed plan -- or at least get a sense of its general impact -- before it even comes out.

When Ryan introduces this framework next week, we will return to the subject and give it another look. And if the House GOP has managed to find a way to cover more people than Obamacare at a lower cost with fewer regulations and no mandates, caps will be tipped.

The Huffington Post's take on the likely components of the House plan assumes that the Affordable Care Act is fully repealed before any new policies are put into place, because that is the explicit goal of the Republican Party. As such, we compare the status quo, which is Obamacare, to what the GOP plan might do to it, including taking health coverage away from 24 million people -- not to the world before the ACA.

And with that important note, here's our review of conservative health policy's greatest hits:

-Get rid of the lines!-

*The idea:* Let health insurance companies sell plans to consumers "across state lines" to increase competition and choice.

*The problem:* This policy has always been a Trojan horse. The notion is to deregulate health insurance by allowing companies to avoid states where rules require them to cover things like diabetes and autism -- and then set up shop in states without those mandates.

And while allowing health insurers to go back to selling plans with meager benefits might be good for healthy people who won't use their coverage, it's bad for sick people and for states with more rules. If a healthy person from state A buys a skimpy plan from state B, insurers in state A lose a healthy customer, which is bad for business and could cause rates there to rise.

Insurers aren't clamoring for this. One big reason is they'd have to assemble networks of medical providers in any state where they had even one customer, which is a lot of bother. Also, it's actually been tried in Georgia and a few other states -- and literally no insurance company has participated.-*High-risk pools for the sick*-

*The idea:* Take care of people with the greatest health care costs by enrolling them in so-called high-risk pool insurance that's government-subsidized. That way, they're covered and everyone else's premiums go down because regular insurance no longer pays for the costliest patients.

*The problem:* This could actually work, if it were adequately funded (think of Medicare, which is sort of a high-risk pool for the elderly, people with disabilities, and kidney-failure patients). Except in the five decades since the first high-risk pools came to be, they've never been adequately financed, and it's hard to see Republicans setting aside a lot of money for government-funded health care any time soon.

-*Make the sick pay more*-

*The idea:* Allow insurers to vary premiums, charging more to people with medical problems or at high risk of developing them. That way, healthy people wouldn’t have to pay as much for their coverage.

*The problem:* For a start, the whole purpose of all kinds of insurance is for many people to pay in so that few people can get benefits when they need them. Getting rid of what's called underwriting -- basing a person's health insurance premiums of their health status and medical history -- is one of the most popular things to come out of the Affordable Care Act, and for good reason.

To a lot of people, jacking up premiums on someone because they just got sick or used to be sick or might someday become sick seems unfair or even cruel. Plus, most of us -- if we're lucky -- will live long enough to go from being the healthy person to the sick person, meaning we'd all become that customer paying more at the time we need it most.-*Tax health insurance more*-

*The idea:* Alter the tax code to reduce or eliminate an existing preference for employer health insurance.

*The problem:* Starting around the time of World War II, the federal government decided that if your employer provides health insurance, then the premiums won’t count as part of your income. One goal of this decision was to boost job-based coverage -- and it did.

But most economists believe the tax break creates an artificial financial incentive to provide employees with generous coverage, causing them to consume more health care and eventually drive up prices for everybody. It also disproportionately benefits middle- and upper-class people, who have the kinds of jobs that provide benefits, over the poor.

The solution, economists say, is to limit the tax break or, better still, eliminate it entirely. The Affordable Care Act actually includes a provision that would accomplish this, although Congress last year voted to postpone its implementation and the change may never take effect.

The risk of messing with this part of the tax code is that it could make insurance more expensive by taxing its cost, which could weaken the foundation of the employer coverage system. This would force people to look elsewhere for insurance.

That’s not such a big deal with Obamacare in place, since the law’s exchanges theoretically make private plans and Medicaid available to everybody, regardless of pre-existing conditions or ability to pay. But without the exchanges or some other similar mechanism for universal coverage, some people who lose employer insurance would end up without any coverage at all.

-*Lower prices for younger people (and higher prices for older people)*-

*The idea:* The ACA limits how much more health insurance companies can charge older customers to compared to younger ones to 3:1. This tends to make coverage relatively more expensive for young adults than before Obamacare, so some Republicans have proposed raising the ratio to 5:1.

*The problem:* It's sort of self-evident: Older people, who typically have higher medical costs and greater need for insurance, would see rate increases. It's roughly the opposite of what the ACA did.-*Health savings accounts!*-

*The idea:* Letting people sock away money and spend it on out-of-pocket medical costs tax-free encourages saving and makes patients more like consumers who shop around for the best prices. A popular Republican proposal is to expand the use of these products and to let people pay health insurance premiums pre-tax, too.

*The problem:* These are great as a tax shelter and a way to buy the cheaper, high-deductible insurance that comes with it -- if you can afford to save money, which most Americans demonstrably can't. What's more, the evidence suggests that patients make terrible shoppers. It's very hard, if not impossible, to get reliable information about what medical procedures costs. Lay people often aren't in a position to know even what questions to ask. And no one comparison shops during an emergency.

-*Make Medicaid better by shrinking it*-

*The idea:* Reduce funding for Medicaid, then give the states way more leeway to run the program as they see fit.

*The problem:* Medicaid is the largest single provider of health coverage in the U.S. It covers even more people than Medicare does, and the program as a whole is very expensive. States, which administer the program and kick in a bunch of the money, struggle to find adequate funding and usually must seek federal approval to alter benefits and eligibility.

To conservatives, the solution is obvious: Slash spending and let states make big changes, like dropping entire categories of enrollees, on their own.

But if you significantly reduce the amount of money devoted to Medicaid, you significantly reduce the number of people you can cover and the kinds of benefits you provide.

Medicaid is already underfunded. It's expensive because there are so many beneficiaries on it -- including a lot of pregnant women, people with disabilities, and frail elderly in nursing homes, who are costly --  not because it’s buying lavish care or full of waste. And it’s not like these people could get insurance some other way. By definition, the people on the program are either very poor, have disabilities, or both.

-*Smaller subsidies for fewer people*-

*The idea:* Health insurance is expensive, so giving people money -- usually in the form of a tax credit -- can help them afford it.

*The problem:* This actually is one of the most consequential parts of the Affordable Care Act. But the questions are: Who gets the money, and how much do they get? GOP plans that feature tax credits offer substantially less assistance to a lot fewer people, and some of them target that assistance based on age, not income. That would leave a portion of the neediest with little to no help and offer subsidies to higher-income households that may not need them.
-*Coverage for (some) people with pre-existing conditions*-

*The idea:* The pre-Obamacare market allowed insurers to reject customers based on their medical histories, and now they must accept anyone. Republicans don't want to keep that, but they want to look like they are by proposing a guarantee that people who already have insurance won't lose it if they get sick.

*The problem:* For one thing, federal law already offered a version of this guarantee even before the Affordable Care Act. More importantly, this could lock out anyone who doesn't have coverage -- because they can't afford it, because they don't think they need it -- forever, leaving them uninsured when the time comes they actually need medical care.

-*Turn Medicare into a voucher program*-

*The idea:* Give seniors vouchers -- a.k.a. "premium support” --  and let them shop around for an insurance plan they like.

*The problem:* Today Medicare is a single government program that guarantees a fixed level of benefits; private insurers can offer alternative plans, but those policies are subject to strict rules that result in coverage that’s no less generous than what the existing program offers.

Conservatives would prefer a system with more free-wheeling competition among plans. The idea has been kicking around for a long time and, in some versions, traditional Medicare remains an option for seniors who want it. But the theory for the change is always the same: Competition would hold down costs better than the existing program does.

Or so the thinking goes. The problem with the theory is that Medicare is actually doing a pretty good job of holding down costs now.

Critics worry, plausibly, that voucher schemes are simply a roundabout way of giving seniors less health care. That’s particularly true when the sponsors of such plans have traditionally envisioned their plans yielding big savings that likely wouldn’t be possible unless the insurance seniors had provided much less coverage than it does now. Critics also worry -- again, with reason -- that traditional Medicare would not survive long in such a scheme, forcing all seniors to take private insurance.

-*Curb malpractice lawsuits*-

*The idea:* Limit jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits

*The problem:* The medical malpractice system gets a lot of bad press, and deservedly so. Many well-meaning physicians operate under clouds of suspicion, particularly in high-risk fields like anesthesia and obstetrics.

Meanwhile, research suggests the system doesn’t serve patients particularly well, because only a relative handful of people harmed by medical negligence actually bring cases to court and win.

That’s why even some liberals have called for reforming malpractice laws in ways that would compensate more of these people while simultaneously introducing new safeguards that would deter negligence -- and, ideally, avoid other kinds of adverse medical events as well. Systems like that already exist in some parts of Europe.

But the usual conservative solution is simply to slap a limit on how much juries and judges can award in damages.

In this scenario, lawyers would be less enthusiastic about bringing cases, since their contingency income from winnings would be much smaller. In the absence of other reforms, the victims of malpractice would have even fewer sources of compensation than they do now.

And while limits on awards might reduce spending at the margins, since physicians would be less inclined to order up extra tests and practice other kinds of “defensive medicine,” most analyses have suggested the impact on the nation’s overall health care bill would be modest.-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Around 4,800 nurses are preparing to launch a one-week strike at five hospitals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in a dispute over health insurance. Minnesota Nurses Association members plan to walk out at 7 a.m. Sunday at hospitals operated by Allina Health — Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis, Mercy in Coon Rapids, United […] Reported by Seattle Times 19 hours ago.

Cost effectiveness analysis (CEA), as applied to health care, attempts to estimate the value of expenditures on procedures or treatments that is returned to patients, such as longer life, better quality of life, or both. Given that the U. S. has the most expensive health care in the world, with comparatively low value and outcomes compared to many other advanced countries, you would think that CEA would be a major part of health policy in this country. Sadly, the opposite is true, and it is notably absent from the way we do things.

This is not to say that no attempts have been made in past years to introduce ways to evaluate effectiveness of health care services, whether involving comparative efficacy or costs. Two national organizations were established in the 1970s--the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) in 1975 and the National Center for Health Care Technology (NCHCT) in 1978--but both were later abolished after a strong backlash from powerful vested interests, especially the medical device industry and some medical professional organizations. (1,2) The FDA remains our main regulatory body, but it is handcuffed by political forces preventing it from using CEA in its coverage policies. It has been underfunded over the years, and is largely dependent on user fees from the industries it supposedly regulates for much of its annual budget, with obvious built-in conflicts of interest analogous to the fox in the henhouse.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) postured toward the need for comparative research on health care services by establishing the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). It was intended to pursue clinical effectiveness research (not cost-effectiveness), but it was hobbled from the start by specific bans in the legislation on any authority to dictate coverage or reimbursement policies. A recent study found that it has had minimal impact, with only one-third of its funding going to clinical effectiveness research. (3) It will also disappear in 2019 unless reauthorized by Congress.

As we know, up to one third of all health services provided each year are either unnecessary, inappropriate, or even harmful. (4) Here are some examples of why we need a much stronger approach to research on comparative efficacy and cost effectiveness of health services being provided in this country:
· A 2008 study of 90 drugs approved by the FDA between 1998 and 2000 found that only 394 of 909 clinical trials were ever published in a peer-reviewed journal. (5)· Much of the research done by drug manufacturers are in for-profit commercial networks, conducted by their marketing departments, without rigorous scientific methods and with unreliable results; unfavorable results are typically not reported.· Two-thirds of new drug applications to the FDA each year aren't really new, but instead are reformulations or minor modifications of existing drugs or requests for new uses, hyped as new drugs. (6)· Between 2003 and 2012, the number of defective Class I recalls of medical devices, which carry a significant probability of death, increased from 7 to 57. (7)· The FDA approved expanded marketing of off-label cancer drugs in 2009 despite the lack of clinical evidence of their effectiveness. (8)· Testosterone drugs for men are widely marketed by the drug industry, claiming their own "research" shows no adverse cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, but major studies over the last 30 years have documented an increase of more than 50 percent of these events among men taking these drugs. (9)· Spending on prescription drugs in the U. S. rose to457 billion in 2015, one-sixth of total health care spending. (10)
We should ask why we still don't have an ongoing, evidence-based mechanism to evaluate the comparative clinical and cost effectiveness of health services. The answer is that it has been opposed successfully to date by the economic and political power of the vested interests that profit from the status quo of our deregulated marketplace. The Citizens United decision has enabled the infusion of even more money into politics, in both major parties, and massive lobbyist campaigns are launched by corporate stakeholders defending their interests whenever new legislation for CEA is being contemplated. Meanwhile, the insurance industry blames the drug industry for accelerating costs even as it increases its own costs and profits at the expense of its enrollees and taxpayers.

Whenever the need for comparative clinical or cost effectiveness research is raised, corporate stakeholders bring up a number of myths, such as "CEA would stifle innovation,""it would lead to rationing of care," and "how can you measure the value of health services anyway"? CEA is an established but underused discipline in this country. As one response to these myths, wouldn't it be a good idea to address the widespread overuse of full-body CT scanning as a screening technique, since more than 30 million such scans are performed every year, posing potentially harmful radiation exposure, without evidence of benefit or approval by the FDA or the American College of Radiology? (11)

The big unanswered question is who and how to decide on the cost effectiveness of health care services-- market interests and politics driven by money vs. science and evidence. We have seen how poorly the first approach works. We can look to science-based models around the world for better examples, such as The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the United Kingdom. In this country, sooner than later, we need an independent, non-partisan, science-based national commission, free from political influence, funded on a long-term basis, and with authority to recommend coverage and reimbursement policies in the public interest. It would logically be part of single-payer financing reform with national health insurance coupled with a private delivery system. As we finally deal with this important issue, we should heed this advice by Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of NICE:
The United States will one day have to take cost effectiveness into account. There is no doubt about it at all. You cannot keep on increasing your health care costs at the rate you are for so poor return. You are 29th in the world in life expectancy. You pay twice as much for health care as anyone else on God's earth. (12)
John Geyman, M.D. is the author of The Human Face of ObamaCare: Promises vs. Reality and What Comes Next and How Obamacare is Unsustainable: Why We Need a Single-Payer Solution For All Americans.

*References:*

1. Perry, S. The brief life of the National Center for Health Care Technology. N Engl J Med 307: 1095-1100, 1982.

2. Leary, WE. Congress's science agency prepares to close its doors. New York Times, September 24, 1995: A 26.

3. Emanuel, Z, Spiro, T, Huelskoetter, T. Re-evaluating the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Center for American Progress, May 31, 2016.

4. Wenner, JB, Fisher, ES, Skinner, JS. Geography and the debate over Medicare reform. Health Affairs Web Exclusive W-103, February 13, 2002.

5. Holtz, RL. What you didn't know about a drug can hurt you: Untold numbers of clinical trial results to unpublished; those that are made public can't always be believed. Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2008: A16.

6. Field, RI. Mother of Invention: How the Government Created Free-Market Health Care. New York. Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 51.

7. Burton, TM. Recalls doubled of medical devices. Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2014: B4.

8. Abelson, R, Pollack, A. Medicare widens drugs it accepts for cancer care: more off-label uses. New York Times, January 27, 2009.

9. Ryan, A. Empty promises from dangerous testosterone-containing drugs. Public Citizen News, March/April 2014, p. 6.

10. Reuters. U. S. health agency estimates 2015 prescription drug spending rose to $457 billion. New York Times, March 8, 2016.

11. Brenner, DJ, Hall, EJ. Computed tomography--an increasing source of radiation exposure. N Engl J Med 357: 2277-2284, 2007.

12. Rawlins, M. As quoted by Silberman, J. Britain weighs the social cost of high-priced drugs. NPR, July 3, 2008.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.

The Internet of Things (IoT) Revolution is picking up speed and it will change how we live, work, and entertain ourselves in a million ways big and small.

From agriculture to defense, retail to healthcare, everything is going to be impacted by the growing ability of businesses, governments, and consumers to connect to and control their environments:

· “Smart mirrors” will allow consumers to try on clothes digitally, enhancing their shopping experience and reducing returns for the retailer
· Assembly line sensors will detect tiny drops in efficiency that indicate critical equipment is wearing out and schedule down-time maintenance in response
· Agricultural equipment guided by GPS and IoT technology will soon plant, fertilize and harvest vast croplands like a giant Roomba while the “driver” reads a magazine
· Active people will share lifestyle data from their fitness trackers in order to help their doctor make better health care decisions (and capture discounts on health insurance premiums)

No wonder the Internet of Things has been called “the next Industrial Revolution.” It’s so big that it could mean new revenue streams for your company and new opportunities for you. The only question is: Are you fully up to speed on the IoT?

Research analysts John Greenough and Jonathan Camhi of BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, spent months of researching and reporting this exploding trend and have put together a report on the Internet of Things that explains its exciting present and the fascinating future.

It covers how IoT is being implemented today, where the new sources of opportunity will be tomorrow and how 17 separate sectors of the economy will be transformed over the next 20 years, including:

· Agriculture
· Connected Home
· Defense
· Financial services
· Food services
· Healthcare
· Hospitality
· Infrastructure
· Insurance

· Logistics
· Manufacturing
· Oil, gas, and mining
· Retail
· Smart buildings
· Transportation
· Connected Car
· Utilities

 

If you work in any of these sectors, it's important for you to understand how the IoT will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any of the industries that will build out the IoT infrastructure—networking, semiconductors, telecommunications, data storage, cybersecurity—this report is a must-have.

Among the big picture insights you’ll get from *The Internet of Things: Examining How the IoT Will Affect The World*:

· IoT devices connected to the Internet will more than triple by 2020, from 10 billion to 34 billion. IoT devices will account for 24 billion, while traditional computing devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.) will comprise 10 billion.
· Nearly $6 trillion will be spent on IoT solutions over the next five years.
· Businesses will be the top adopter of IoT solutions because they will use IoT to 1) lower operating costs; 2) increase productivity; and 3) expand to new markets or develop new product offerings.
· Governments will be the second-largest adopters, while consumers will be the group least transformed by the IoT.

And when you dig deep into the report, you’ll get the whole story in a clear, no-nonsense presentation:

· The complex infrastructure of the Internet of Things distilled into a single ecosystem
· The most comprehensive breakdown of the benefits and drawbacks of mesh (e.g. ZigBee, Z- Wave, etc.), cellular (e.g. 3G/4G, Sigfox, etc.), and internet (e.g. Wi-Fi, Ethernet, etc.) networks
· The important role analytics systems, including edge analytics, cloud analytics, will play in making the most of IoT investments
· The sizable security challenges presented by the IoT and how they can be overcome
· The four powerful forces driving IoT innovation, plus the four difficult market barriers to IoT adoption
· Complete analysis of the likely future investment in the critical IoT infrastructure: connectivity, security, data storage, system integration, device hardware, and application development
· In-depth analysis of how the IoT ecosystem will change and disrupt 17 different industries

*The Internet of Things: Examining How the IoT Will Affect The World* is how you get the full story on the Internet of Things.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the IoT universe, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> *START A MEMBERSHIP*
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> *BUY THE REPORT*

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of the IoT.

Join the conversation about this story » Reported by Business Insider 9 hours ago.

Even seasonal agriculture workers are required to have health insurance, but reaching them can be an uphill battle. Reported by ABCNews.com 22 hours ago.

DUNN, N.C. (AP) — Some seasonal agricultural workers were finishing a meal after a long day of planting sweet potato seeds when Julie Pittman pulled into to their camp. Alexis Guild, a migrant health policy analyst at Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group based in Washington, said North Carolina has been "very successful" in enrolling H-2A farmworkers, thanks to a yearslong partnership among various nonprofits and health centers. The cost of health insurance depends on the type purchased, income and family size, Pittman told them. First in line at the camp was Apolinar Castillo, of Zacatecas, Mexico, who got a bill in the latest batch of mail he received from his boss. Workers under the H-2A visa program are a small minority of the nation's more than 2.4 million farmworkers, many of whom are in the country illegally and don't have access to health insurance. Alice Pollard or the North Carolina Community Health Center Association, said access to health insurance also opens the door to preventive care for, say, diabetes and high blood pressure, two chronic conditions that are prevalent among farmworkers. Thomas Arcury, director of the Center for Worker Health at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, said farmworkers work long hours, don't have access to transportation or accumulate paid sick days, which is why many ignore their illnesses. Steve Davis of Greene County Health Care, a community health center that enrolled nearly 800 workers last year, said most farmworkers know of workers who were injured in a soccer game or got violently ill while in the U.S. and landed in the emergency room. The bottom line, he said, is that there is a tremendous need to provide health services to farmworkers and health insurance is a step in that direction. EDITOR'S NOTE — Alejandra Cancino is studying health care and long-term care issues as part of a fellowship at the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which joins Reported by SeattlePI.com 22 hours ago.

The marketplaces were expected to draw millions of individual customers to an array of start-up insurers. But the market is smaller than those companies hoped. Reported by NYTimes.com 15 hours ago.

Lice Troopers is reporting a number of head lice cases from children attending local summer camps

(PRWEB) June 20, 2016

Though Summer has not officially started, June is the time that warmer temperatures and higher humidity levels begin to make their way to Miami, according to World Weather & Climate. These are prime conditions for head lice, and local head lice removal company, Lice Troopers, has seen a spike in cases in the last month, which they attribute to these conditions.

“It happens around this time every year: kids are at summer camp for about a week and then the appointments start flooding in,” says Lice Troopers owner, Arie Harel. Harel reports seeing nearly double the number of confirmed cases in his treatment centers in the last 30 days versus the 30 days prior. To combat epidemics during the summer, the company provides partnerships and screening services to local summer camps. “Prevention and early detection are key in keeping lice epidemics at bay,” Harel states.

Lice Troopers urges parents and camp administrators to be vigilant and educate their children on how to avoid an infestation during this high-risk time. Primarily that means not sharing personal items such as hair ties, combs, brushes, and sports equipment.

Lice Troopers is the all-natural, guaranteed Head Lice Removal Service™ that manually removes the head louse parasite safely and discreetly in child-friendly salon settings, or other chosen location. Providing safe solutions for frantic families, the Lice Troopers team has successfully treated thousands of families nationwide, with services widely recommended by pediatricians, and reimbursed by many major health insurance carriers, flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts. Reported by PRWeb 6 hours ago.

Option for states to launch public health insurance plans brings Dems together Reported by ABCNews.com 4 hours ago.

The forum will take place on June 22 to educate and build relationships that can improve health care for high need children and families.

New York, NY (PRWEB) June 20, 2016

This critically important policy forum on Health Care Reform is hosted by The Collaborative for Children and Families (CCF), along with the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, and is supported by a grant from The New York Community Trust.

The forum will bring together over 200 professionals from medical and behavioral care providers, children and family service providers, public agencies, foundations and academia to educate and build relationships that will help improve the health care of children and families who most need support in the midst of health care reform.

Panel discussions feature subject matter for Integrating Primary and Behavioral Care to Serve the Child and Family, Caring for Children and Families with Adverse Experiences and Building a Health Home Workforce that can Help Families Negotiate the Shifting Health Care System.

Additionally, keynote speakers will feature Gary S. Belkin, MD, MPH, PhD, Executive Deputy Commissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Lana Earle, Deputy Director, Office of Health Insurance Programs, New York State Department of Health and Rahil D. Briggs, PsyD, Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

About the CCF - The CCF is a New York State not-for- profit corporation established in 2014 – includes 34 member agencies that serve children and families throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Collectively, the CCF works with nearly all the youth in foster care in the greater New York City area and nearly 60 percent of the children and families receiving preventive care. The Collaborative evolved from common interest in strengthening internal capacity and improving service delivery for the children and families its members serve. CCF gained approval to create a children’s health home under New York State’s Medicaid reform program.

http://www.ccfhh.org Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.

This article appears in the Summer 2016 issue. Subscribe here. 

It is misleading, some observers have rightly pointed out, to treat the 2016 election as a contest between two candidates who are equally serious about policy. Donald Trump has been on both sides of many issues, contradicting himself from one day to the next. On occasion, he has given a speech written by advisers on a subject like energy where he seemed as surprised by the text as the audience was.  He has a core of symbolically important positions on such issues as immigration, but otherwise his views are murky. Much of what he says about foreign or domestic problems is all impulse and no thought, so when his impulse momentarily changes, his positions change too.

For Hillary Clinton, however, substance actually does matter. Her seriousness defines her. We have not reached the stage of gender equality when a woman candidate for president could get away with being as subject to changing moods and personal pique as Trump is. While no one would know what to expect from a Trump presidency in major areas of policy, Clinton has laid out plans in virtually every domain. That plenitude of nuanced and multilayered policies is both an asset and a limitation. It is valuable in signaling to different groups where her commitments lie, and it will be an asset in governing if she is elected. But it is a limitation in a political campaign for reasons that have been especially clear this year.

Whether voters love or hate Trump, they can name a few big things he says he would do as president: build a wall on the Mexican border, round up and deport illegal immigrants, ban Muslims from coming to America, and redo trade deals. Similarly, Democratic primary voters this year were able to identify Bernie Sanders with a few major promises: break up the banks, make public college free, and pass what he calls “Medicare for all.”

Despite Clinton’s ample detail—her website covers more than 30 different issue areas, each with bullet points about specifics—voters would probably be hard-pressed to come up with three or four big ideas they identify with her. Although it is hardly a weakness of a presidential candidate to be prepared for the scope of the job, her campaign has not had a clarifying focus on a few big themes or proposals that instantly communicate what she wants to do.

 

AP Photo/Kathy Willens, Pool

Clinton talks with a youngster at an early childhood education center in New York in 2015. 

The strategy that Clinton has adopted thus far this year may be partly to blame. Seeking to rally diverse constituencies, she has framed her candidacy in broad, progressive terms, often saying she wants to break down “all the barriers” facing people—not just economic barriers, but also those based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other sources of disadvantage. She also says she wants to build on Barack Obama’s presidency, and since Obama has previously supported much of what she favors, those ideas do not have her own stamp—at least not yet. In contrast to Sanders, she has repeatedly said she doesn’t want to make unrealistic promises, and against both Sanders and Trump, she has cast herself as the candidate of responsibility and refused to call for huge programs or huge tax cuts that would balloon the federal deficit. In another presidential year, she might get credit for good judgment; this year, she gets criticized for lacking imagination.

Perhaps concerned about the media seizing on whatever issue she leaves out, Clinton has resisted indicating which of her proposals would have priority. In a profile this spring in New York Magazine, Rebecca Traister reports Clinton saying she doesn’t accept the premise that as president she would have to choose which issues to advance first, assuming a two-year window of opportunity to move legislation through Congress. “I want to take everything I’ve said I’m going to work on and be as teed up as possible from the very beginning. I want to give [Congress] every opportunity to move forward on several fronts.”

Of course, advances along those fronts depend on the outcome of the congressional election. If Democrats win control of the Senate as well as the presidency, it would help Clinton with both judicial and executive nominations, but not necessarily with epochal legislation if Republicans still hold their House majority. In the less likely scenario in which Democrats also win back the House, the legislative logjam since 2011 could break open—especially if Senate Democrats eliminate the filibuster (as they did for appellate court nominations in 2013). Even if the odds of full control of Congress are low, Clinton ought to be “teed up” to take advantage of that possibility. Both Bill Clinton and Obama had a two-year window at the beginning of their presidencies, and most of the progressive legislation of recent decades was enacted during those intervals—the only four years of unified Democratic government in the past 36.

Before getting ahead of herself, however, Clinton has to win the election, and it is first of all for that purpose that she needs to define her priorities more sharply. Unlike Trump, she’s not going to go to extremes to make her case. But voters should know what to expect from her, and she needs to find ways to convey ideas that will stand out in their minds.

 

*Focusing Clinton’s Economic Agenda*

The economy and jobs usually top the list of voter concerns, so let’s begin there. Although Clinton’s approach to economic issues isn’t embodied in one or two signature policies, her agenda does have a thematic unity, summed up in a phrase she often uses, “giving working families a raise.”

A higher minimum wage is an unambiguous expression of that theme. In the Democratic primaries, the clash between Clinton and Sanders over the size of a minimum-wage increase obscured their agreement on a big jump. Raising the federal minimum from $7.25 to $12—the level Clinton has endorsed—would be the single largest increase in the history of the minimum wage in either percentage or absolute terms. (She also supports efforts in states and municipalities to raise their minimum wages to $15.) Clinton should be able to draw a sharp contrast on the issue with Trump, who has said that wages in America are “too high,” though in his customary style, he has also casually suggested he could support a minimum-wage increase, as if a Republican Congress would send him one.

Several other elements fit into Clinton’s overall theme, each of which articulates to other elements in her campaign. Like Obama, who increased infrastructure spending as part of the economic-recovery program soon after taking office, Clinton says that during her first 100 days she will call upon Congress to boost investment in roads, bridges, and other public works more than at any time since the development of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. Closely related are policies to increase investment in clean energy, including measures aimed at installing half a billion solar panels and generating enough power from alternative sources to run all of America’s homes in four years. In line with the effort to give working families a raise, she’s pledged not to increase taxes for those making less than $250,000 a year, proposing instead to finance investments in infrastructure and other measures by closing “corporate tax loopholes” and making “the most fortunate pay their fair share.”

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

If Democrats win big in November, the outcome may be seen, above all, as a mandate on immigration reform. Here, supporters of fair immigration reform gather in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, Monday, April 18, 2016. 

Here it is worth taking a moment to consider Clinton’s revenue and tax-fairness proposals in light of what Obama has done. Although you might never know it from discussion among progressives, the Obama years have seen a major shift in tax burdens from lower- and middle-income people to the rich. In 2009, Congress enacted three tax-credit increases that were later made permanent (the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit). Together, these have cut taxes for 24 million working- and middle-class families by an average of about $1,000. The subsidies for health-insurance premiums in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) represent another substantial benefit for those with low to middle incomes. At the median income, the federal income tax rate is now 5.3 percent, which is lower than the average in any presidential administration since the 1950s, indeed, less than half the rate during Jimmy Carter’s presidency (1977–1980).

The flip side of the Obama record on taxes has been higher taxation of upper-income households. In 2010, congressional Democrats and the president prevented the extension of the tax cuts for the rich enacted under George W. Bush, increasing the top marginal income tax rate back to its level during the Clinton administration (39.6 percent) and reducing tax cuts on investment income and estates. When these changes went into effect in 2013, the top 0.1 percent paid $50 billion in taxes more than they would have paid under the previous rules. Partly as a result of a provision in the ACA, the tax rate on capital gains has gone from 15 percent to 23.8 percent.

Clinton’s proposals move in the same progressive direction, raising taxes on top incomes and providing relief to the less affluent. To pay for her new initiatives, she is calling for a 4 percent surtax on people with incomes over $5 million and a new minimum tax of 30 percent on those with pre-deduction incomes of more than $1 million. Several of her tax proposals are aimed at promoting long-term investment within the United States. These include increases in capital gains taxes for assets held for less than six years and other changes in tax policy to discourage high-frequency trading and shifts of corporations, jobs, and investment abroad. One little-discussed idea she has endorsed is a tax credit to encourage corporations to adopt employee profit-sharing plans. According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Clinton’s tax proposals would generate about $1.1 trillion over a decade: “Nearly all of the tax increases would fall on the top 1 percent; the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers would see little or no change in their taxes.”

Besides paying for infrastructure investments, much of the tax revenue Clinton proposes to raise would go to purposes that bear out her theme of “giving working families a raise.” Clinton would use some of the revenue to finance her proposal for paid family leave. In the same vein, she is proposing to move toward universal pre-K by providing new funds to states that expand access to preschool for all four-year-olds. She has also discussed limiting families’ child-care costs to 10 percent of income, and although she hasn’t yet spelled out the details, that idea could involve refundable tax credits. The proposals add up to a clear message, if Clinton and the Democrats can communicate it: tax fairness on behalf of families who are struggling to make ends meet.

On taxes, the contrast with Trump could hardly be more dramatic. Trump’s tax plan calls for sharp cuts in federal income tax rates, including a reduction in the top rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent would see their taxes fall on average by more than $275,000, while the top 0.1 percent would enjoy a windfall averaging over $1.3 million. For the lowest-income households, the tax cut would amount to $128; for middle-income households, $2,700. In addition, Trump would also completely eliminate federal estate taxes—which currently apply only to estates worth more than $5.45 million—and reduce taxes on business. The total loss in federal revenue, conservatively estimated by the Tax Policy Center at $9.5 trillion over ten years, would lead to severe cuts in federal programs or massive increases in deficits, or both. (The estimate of lost revenue is conservative because it doesn’t take into account rising interest costs from rising deficits.) Trump has ruled out cuts in Social Security and Medicare. On that assumption, other federal spending—defense, transportation, health, education, and so on—would have to be cut by about 80 percent to balance the budget. Since cuts of that magnitude aren’t feasible, the deficit would likely grow explosively.

In the contest over economic policy, Trump benefits from the undeserved impression that he has been a business genius and, more generally, from gendered expectations about the two candidates. In contrast to Clinton’s family-centered economics, Trump offers a seemingly more muscular, nationalist alternative. He promises to get factories humming by slapping tariffs on foreign imports, undoing environmental and other regulations, and boosting production of fossil fuels, including coal. Deporting the 11 million unauthorized immigrants fits with the same approach. It’s a turn-back-the-clock agenda that may appeal especially to white, industrial workers who have lost ground in recent decades, even though the job losses in manufacturing over the past half-century primarily stem from long-term technological change that, especially with advances in robotics, will almost certainly continue regardless of Trump’s policies. Rather than helping workers, Trump’s threatened tariffs could set off a trade war that would cost jobs in export-oriented industries, and the mass deportations he calls for would be not only inhumane but also economically devastating to the regions in the United States where immigrants account for much of the workforce and consumer demand.

AP Photo/Danny Johnston

Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea Clinton speak at a "No Ceilings" event dealing with women's issues at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, November 15, 2014. 

Clinton isn’t conceding ground to Trump on industrial jobs. She is proposing to devote $10 billion to regional alliances called “Make it in America Partnerships,” aimed at strengthening industrial competitiveness and building on the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation established under legislation that Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown sponsored in 2014. The clean-energy proposals also aim at fostering manufacturing jobs. Acknowledging that trade has had mixed effects on manufacturing, she says new trade agreements have to meet “a high bar” and has backed away from supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

But whereas Trump wants to wall America off from outsiders and revert to an unrecoverable past, Clinton’s agenda is fundamentally modernizing. She calls for more investment in science and technology, urges increased assistance to students to make college debt-free, accepts the facts of climate change, and generally favors trade and openness to the world. As against Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, she is committed to upholding America’s international agreements and leadership role on a planet that has become more interconnected than ever. Her support for paid family leave, universal pre-K, and assistance with child-care costs reflects a commitment to bring national policy in line with the contemporary realities of family life.

Clinton properly frames those family-centered economic policies as a foundation of general prosperity. “The movement of women into the American workforce over the past 40 years was responsible for more than $3.5 trillion in economic growth,” she argued in a speech last July. But whereas “the United States used to rank seventh out of 24 advanced countries in women’s labor force participation,” America dropped to 19th by 2013, partly because other countries are “expanding family-friendly policies like paid leave and we are not.” High-quality, affordable child care, she said, “is not a luxury. It’s a growth strategy.”

Clinton’s challenge is to persuade voters that her vision of what she calls a “growth and fairness economy” is rooted in today’s America, and Trump’s is stuck in yesterday’s. “When he says, ‘Let’s make America great again,’” Clinton declared on June 7, “that is code for ‘Let’s take America backward.’” She needs to press the case that Trump has lied about who would benefit from his tax plan and that the tough-guy image is fake—he has no practical way of making American industry great again, either by muscling other countries in trade or by deporting millions of immigrants. But while framing Trump’s notions as backward-looking bombast, Clinton also has to fill in what are still blanks in many voters’ minds about her own program, spelling out how she would “give working families a raise.” A historic increase in the minimum wage, a big infrastructure program, tax fairness, and new policies centered on families and children can provide the substance behind that theme.

 

*A Referendum on America*

The priorities that emerge from an election and shape a presidency often depend on the conflicts that the election itself highlights, based on the identities and personalities of the candidates as well as the issues they campaign on. The 2016 election has become a referendum on the kind of society that the American people want. Eight years ago, Barack Obama’s candidacy put to the test how far Americans had come in accepting African Americans as full and equal citizens. This year’s election is also about diversity, but the conflict now focuses on immigrants because of Trump and on women because of Clinton—and Clinton has every reason, and shows every sign, of using the stark challenge that Trump poses as a call to arms to voters and, if she wins, a mandate for action.

By nominating Trump, Republicans have raised the stakes on immigration. Under George W. Bush and again in the wake of the 2012 election, Democrats thought they could reach agreement with Republicans on legislation to provide a path to citizenship for long-settled, law-abiding unauthorized immigrants. That era appears to be gone now that the GOP has a nominee threatening mass deportations. If Democrats win big in November, I expect the outcome will be seen, above all, as providing a mandate on immigration reform. A decisive rejection of Trump will be a vote for an open, diverse society, and both Clinton and congressional Democrats will be emboldened to confirm that choice. But if Democrats fall short and immigration reform fails again, Clinton has committed to maintaining and expanding the administrative actions that Obama has taken in protecting Dreamers and others among the undocumented (actions, however, that are pending before the Supreme Court).

Immigration reform—together with racial-justice issues—will likely receive priority for another reason: the political debt that Democrats, and Clinton in particular, owe to the black, Latino, and Asian American communities. Clinton would not be the presumptive Democratic nominee if she hadn’t won overwhelming majorities among minority voters in the primaries. One of the first speeches she gave in the campaign was about ending the era of mass incarceration; she was also early to focus on the drinking-water crisis in Flint, Michigan, as an issue of environmental justice. She cannot afford to forget those commitments. Four years from now, minority voters could again be crucial to her re-election.

Gender-related concerns were bound to arise in the first presidential election with a woman at the head of a major-party ticket. But Trump’s sexist comments about women, open talk about the size of his penis, and peacock-like demeanor have put the politics of gender into the spotlight in an unprecedented way. Clinton couldn’t have picked a better foil for making her case for women’s rights and a vision of prosperity with families and children at the center. Just as with immigration, Clinton will have the basis for claiming a mandate on those issues if she wins in November.

 

*IF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY* hadn’t turned as far right as it has in recent years, there might well have been possibilities for bipartisan cooperation on other major issues besides immigration. Two of these, climate change and health care, have now become long-term reform projects identified with the Democratic Party, begun in earnest under Obama and necessarily of high priority to a Democratic successor.

Trump again makes the stakes exceptionally clear. While some Republicans at least acknowledge global warming, Trump once tweeted that the very idea is a Chinese conspiracy to dismantle American manufacturing. In May, as part of his energy speech, which could have been summed up as “fossil fuels forever,” he pledged to “cancel the Paris climate agreement” and rescind environmental regulations that cut carbon emissions.

Picking up where Obama leaves off, Clinton has primarily focused on using authority under existing law to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution. The failure of Senate Democrats in 2010 to pass a cap-and-trade program approved by the House showed how difficult it is for Democrats, even with a Senate majority, to get representatives from coal-dependent states to vote for any bill moving the country toward energy alternatives. Besides defending Obama’s executive actions—in particular, the Clean Power Plan, which effectively bars new coal-fired power plants—Clinton is calling for higher fuel-efficiency standards, changes in leasing practices on federal lands, and stricter regulation of methane emissions (and therefore of fracking). Democratic control of Congress would be necessary for some measures Clinton is supporting, such as new investments in clean-energy infrastructure and an end to tax subsidies to the oil and gas industries.

AP Photo/Doug Mills

Clinton testifies on health-care reform in 1993. Improving the ACA would be a top priority now. 

On health care, there was some confusion last fall about where Trump stood. While calling for the repeal of Obamacare, he suggested that he might deviate from Republican orthodoxy and propose a program for universal coverage. But by February he backtracked, issuing a plan that would not only end coverage for about 20 million people who have gained it through the ACA but also effectively nullify state regulation of health insurance. The plan would allow insurance to be sold across state lines, enabling insurers to locate in states with the weakest laws.

Health-care reform has been the national issue most closely identified with Clinton, dating back to her role as the public advocate for her husband’s plan in 1993. She has a grasp of health policy few other public figures can match, and while continuing to carry out the ACA, she may now also have the opportunity to fix problems with the law, especially if Democrats secure a congressional majority.

In their early going, major reforms often need reforming themselves. After enacting Social Security in 1935, Democrats controlled both Congress and the presidency for more than a decade, which enabled them to amend and consolidate the program. Likewise, after passing Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, they were also able soon afterward to adjust those programs in amendments. But immediately after passing the ACA, Democrats lost control of Congress, and although Republicans have been unable to repeal the law, they have blocked constructive changes. The ACA, many Democrats initially said, would be a foundation they could build on, but they haven’t had the chance due to the gridlock in Washington.

Several problems now stand out as legitimate sources of dissatisfaction with health-care reform: high levels of patient cost-sharing in plans available in the insurance marketplaces; continued difficulties among low-income families in affording premiums; narrow networks (that is, lack of choice of physicians and other providers); and lack of competition among insurers in some states and regions. To help make coverage more affordable, Clinton is proposing a tax credit of up to $5,000 per family to offset a portion of the out-of-pocket and premium costs that exceed 5 percent of family income—another example of giving working families a raise. She would require insurers to limit out-of-pocket prescription drug costs to $250 per month for patients with chronic or serious conditions. She wants to increase incentives for states to expand Medicaid. And, as she did in her 2008 presidential campaign, she is supporting the establishment of a “public option” as a competitive alternative to private plans in the insurance marketplaces.

A public option could come in different forms. One possibility endorsed by Clinton is a Medicare buy-in for people when they reach age 50 or 55. This is not a new idea; Bill Clinton proposed it for 55- to 64-year-olds in the late 1990s and Al Gore supported it in his 2000 presidential campaign. The difficulty then was the likely cost resulting from “adverse selection”; the people most likely to enroll would have been those in poor health with high medical costs. Although this problem won’t have disappeared, it should be more manageable because of the subsidized plans already available in the insurance marketplaces. In fact, by taking 50- or 55- to 64-year-olds out of the general risk pool, a Medicare buy-in could result in lower premiums (and therefore lower federal tax subsidies) for everyone else in the insurance marketplaces. Letting Medicare compete for middle-aged enrollees in the insurance exchanges could be an incremental step toward a general public option. Short of congressional action on the Medicare buy-in or a general public option at the national level, Clinton has said she will use the flexibility already provided by the ACA to help states establish their own public options. Considering Clinton’s long personal involvement in health-care reform, the issue should be a top priority of hers.

 

*TO THE SHORT LIST OF REFORM *projects that will likely rank high on Clinton’s agenda, we can add one more—democracy itself. Recent decisions by the Supreme Court and policies adopted by Republicans at the state level have increased the political importance of voting and campaign-finance rules. Whereas Republican-controlled state governments have sought to make voting more difficult, Clinton wants to make it easier. She favors automatic voter registration for 18-year-olds and a new national standard for early voting (allowing voting to begin 20 days or more before an election). She’s endorsed a small-donor matching program as part of campaign-finance reform and wants to reverse the Supreme Court’s weakening of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Court’s Citizens United decision.

Although Clinton would not be able to bring about many of these changes on her own authority without a Democratic Congress, she could have an enormous influence on the democracy agenda through Supreme Court and other judicial appointments. Assuming the Senate does not confirm Judge Merrick Garland during the lame-duck session after the election, Clinton—or for that matter Trump—could make as many as four Supreme Court appointments. Those choices could be the most important decisions the next president makes.

SUltimately, many people who cast their ballots for Clinton may vote more against Trump than for her, in part because they know enough about Trump to fear him, although they may be less clear about what Clinton would do. But Clinton has the basis for a stronger, positive case. She wouldn’t just make political history by becoming America’s first woman president; her family-centered economics provides the substance to make her presidency a milestone in American social life. After the long rise of inequality, it would not be a little thing to increase the minimum wage by 65 percent or to enact paid family leave and support for child care and universal pre-K. Affirming America’s commitment to an open and diverse society through immigration reform would also be a big deal. So would pushing ahead on the great energy transition and universal health care, as well as a revitalized democracy. The battle during the primaries left some Democrats feeling that Clinton wasn’t reaching high enough. But if she can accomplish half of her agenda, they may feel very different. Reported by The American Prospect 3 hours ago.

DUNN, N.C. (AP) — Seasonal agricultural workers were just finishing a meal after a long day of planting sweet potato seeds when Julie Pittman pulled up to their camp. In the United States legally through the H-2A visa program, these farmworkers, like most American citizens and legal residents, must be insured. Alexis Guild, a migrant health policy analyst at Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., said a yearslong partnership among various nonprofits and health centers in North Carolina has been working to enroll the workers. In the camp near Dunn, Pittman told the workers that the cost of health insurance depends on the type purchased, income and family size. Large farm operators are required to offer health insurance to their workers. Steve Davis of Greene County Health Care, a community health center that enrolled nearly 800 workers last year, said most farmworkers know of workers who were injured or became ill and landed in the emergency room. EDITOR'S NOTE — Alejandra Cancino is studying health care and long-term care issues as part of a fellowship at the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which joins NORC's independent research and AP journalism. Reported by SeattlePI.com 3 hours ago.

DUNN, N.C. (AP) — Some seasonal agricultural workers were finishing a meal after a long day of planting sweet potato seeds when Julie Pittman pulled into to their camp. Alexis Guild, a migrant health policy analyst at Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group based in Washington, said North Carolina has been "very successful" in enrolling H-2A farmworkers, thanks to a yearslong partnership among various nonprofits and health centers. The cost of health insurance depends on the type purchased, income and family size, Pittman told them. First in line at the camp was Apolinar Castillo, of Zacatecas, Mexico, who got a bill in the latest batch of mail he received from his boss. Workers under the H-2A visa program are a small minority of the nation's more than 2.4 million farmworkers, many of whom are in the country illegally and don't have access to health insurance. Alice Pollard or the North Carolina Community Health Center Association, said access to health insurance also opens the door to preventive care for, say, diabetes and high blood pressure, two chronic conditions that are prevalent among farmworkers. Thomas Arcury, director of the Center for Worker Health at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, said farmworkers work long hours, don't have access to transportation or accumulate paid sick days, which is why many ignore their illnesses. Steve Davis of Greene County Health Care, a community health center that enrolled nearly 800 workers last year, said most farmworkers know of workers who were injured in a soccer game or got violently ill while in the U.S. and landed in the emergency room. The bottom line, he said, is that there is a tremendous need to provide health services to farmworkers and health insurance is a step in that direction. EDITOR'S NOTE — Alejandra Cancino is studying health care and long-term care issues as part of a fellowship at the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which joins Reported by SeattlePI.com 3 hours ago.

On June 28-30, health industry experts will provide insider perspectives and key guidance in three Atlantic Information Services webinars.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) June 20, 2016

Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS) is pleased to announce three late-June webinars. Held on consecutive days, top lawyers, pharmacy benefit consultants and executives from health care start-ups will address current hot topics in the health insurance industry.· June 28, “Network Wars: Health Plan Strategies to Protect and Defend In-Network Contracts” — Top health industry lawyers Carol Lucas, chair of law firm Buchalter Nemer LLP’s Health Care Practice Group, and Robert Wolin, a Houston-based member of BakerHostetler’s Healthcare Team, will explain how health insurers are using audits and court actions to enforce out-of-network provider agreements.
· June 29, “Three Case Studies: How Start-ups Are Reinventing the Individual and Small-Group Insurance Markets” — Executives from three start-up health insurance companies — Bright Health co-founder Kyle Rolfing, Canopy Health co-founder and COO David Pinkert, and Harken Health vice president of sales Marcus Robinson — will explain their visions for consumer-focused, technology-driven health insurance and how startups are likely to impact the health insurance industry.
· June 30, “12 PBM Contracting Pitfalls … and Ways to Avoid Them” — This webinar offers a deep dive into the most common contracting mistakes that plan sponsors and health plans make when negotiating a service agreement with their PBM. Webinar participants will hear from two executives from Solid Benefit Guidance: Josh Golden, an area senior vice president, and vice president Helen Sherman, Pharm.D., R.Ph.

Each webinar will conclude with a 30-minute Q&A session, and will be available as a recording for those who cannot attend the live program.

Visit http://aishealth.com/marketplace/webinars for more details and registration information.

About AIS
Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS) is a publishing and information company that has been serving the health care industry for nearly 30 years. It develops highly targeted news, data and strategic information for managers in hospitals and health systems, health insurance companies, medical group practices, purchasers of health insurance, pharmaceutical companies and other health care organizations. AIS products include print and electronic newsletters, databases, websites, looseleafs, strategic reports, directories, webinars, virtual conferences and training programs. Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#AcceleratorReport--On Latest BizWireTV Accelerator Report: Augmented Reality Captures VC Attention and Health Insurance Goes Digital Reported by Business Wire 3 hours ago.

CMS released its Medicaid Managed Care Final Rule regarding managed care in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program Reported by Mondaq 2 hours ago.

Seniors in Montana interested in long-term senior care should first know the daily costs of nursing homes in their area and review the most important quality of care factors.

Chicago, Illinois (PRWEB) June 20, 2016

For most Montana seniors needing a long-term stay in a nursing home, families can expect to pay about $75,920 per year, the average annual cost based on the daily rates of private and semi-private rooms in the state’s 92 nursing homes.

Seniors in the Treasure State who require nursing home care can now view the most recent ratings and costs of nursing homes in their area by using the interactive Caregiverlist® Nursing Home Directory. This month’s update of the Montana Caregiverlist® Index shows that the average cost of a nursing home in Montana is $208 per day (based on both private and semi-private rooms), or about $6,326 per month. Of the 92 total Montana nursing homes, half receive a score of 4 or 5 stars, Twenty six more recieved a 3+ -star rating. While 10 Montana nursing homes rate at the lowest star rating, new nursing homes will also receive only a 1-star until they have had a chance to be rated.

Caregiverlist® Rating Criteria National Averages for Montana Nursing Homes

June 2016 National Averages Weighting for Rating

2 hours, 28 minutes: C.N.A. Hours per Resident per Day 40%
15.7%: Long-stay Residents with Increasing Activities of Daily Living Needs 20%
1.0% Short-term Residents with Pressure Sores (Bed Sores) 20%
Overall Medicare Star-Rating Score 20%

Caregiverlist® Montana Nursing Home Rating and Cost Index

Below is a snapshot of Montana nursing home costs and ratings:
Total Number of Nursing Homes: 92

Average Single Price: $215
Average Double Price: $200
Average Rating: 3.0 (out of 5)

Star Rating Snapshot:
5-Star: 7
4-Star: 46
3-Star: 26
2-Star: 3
1-Star: 10

The Caregiverlist® rating combines 4 criteria to calculate an overall star-rating with a 5-star rating as the highest and a 1-star rating as the lowest score, as rated against the results for the total number of nursing homes.

Madison Valley Manor in Ennis is the Montana nursing home with the highest Caregiverlist® rating; it carries a score of 4.6 out of 5 stars. The nursing home's daily private room cost is $165, 23.43% lower than the average single room price of $215 .

Montana seniors may find themselves in nursing rehabilitation as an extension of a hospital stay. Oftentimes Medicare health insurance will authorize a hospital discharge directly to a nursing home for rehabilitation, and can cover up to 100 days of "skilled nursing" care. Families may be financially responsible for extended stays. Medicaid may pay ongoing nursing home stays for low-income qualifying seniors.

Costs of senior care are always a factor when choosing the right senior care option. Low-income seniors in Montana may qualify for Medicaid, with the financial qualification of no more than $2,000 in assets for individuals and a $3,000 limit for couples. Medicaid will pay for long-term care in a nursing home for as long as the senior qualifies for needing care, even if this means multiple years of care until death. Visit the Caregiverlist® Montana Medicaid Eligibility Requirements for more information.

Montana seniors and their families should review the ratings and costs of nursing homes in their area. Ratings for nursing homes are only a starting point and while the Caregiverlist® Index calculates a custom rating based on the most important criteria for quality, Medicare will only begin auditing the nursing home’s submitted information for C.N.A. staffing next year. Right now all of the information for the nursing home ratings is self-reported. We recommend, when possible, to visit the properties in person for preview.

About Caregiverlist®
Caregiverlist.com® is the premier service connecting seniors and professional caregivers with the most reliable senior care options, highest quality ratings and outstanding careers nationwide. Founded by senior care professionals, Caregiverlist® delivers the efficiencies of the internet to senior care companies by providing online job applications, caregiver training, background checks and industry news. Seniors and caregivers can access senior service information “by state,” view nursing home costs and star-ratings and learn about all senior care options and quality standards. For more information, please visit http://www.caregiverlist.com. Reported by PRWeb 2 hours ago.

Populations living in French rural regions which require higher levels of pesticide may be at a greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD), according to a study released today at the 20th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders.

Berlin (PRWEB) June 20, 2016

Populations living in French rural regions which require higher levels of pesticide may be at a greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD), according to a study released today at the 20th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders.

It is already known that there is evidence of a link between pesticides and incidence of PD through occupational exposure. This study, led by Sofiane Kab and a team of French researchers, investigated whether those living in rural French regions with more crops would be at a higher risk of developing PD through non-occupational exposure.

The study identified PD cases from French National Health Insurance databases from 2010-2012, and examined the association between PD rates and types of farming. They found higher rates of PD in rural areas of France, particularly in areas with many vineyards, as they require the most intense use of insecticides and fungicides. Ultimately, the data collected through the study suggest that those who live in farming regions requiring high levels of pesticide are at a greater risk of PD.
Caroline Tanner, Professor of Neurology at the University of California San Francisco and Director of the Parkinson’s Disease Research Education and Clinical Center at the San Francisco Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, states, “This current report is the largest study assessing newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease and inferred pesticide exposures. Because the study is derived from the national health insurance records of France, and investigates newly diagnosed (incident) cases, bias is minimized, providing an accurate picture for the entire population. Rural residence alone increases the risk of PD, suggesting that ambient pesticide exposure is a risk factor. Information on smoking, a recognized risk modifier, was also included, adding to the strength of the study design.” Tanner adds, “The current report strengthens the evidence associating PD and rural residence, and, by inference, pesticide exposure. More detailed investigation in this large population will be critical, and would be expected to identify specific causative pesticides, and, in turn, underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms. Ultimately, this work may identify ways to reduce PD incidence.”

About the 20th International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders: Meeting attendees gather to learn the latest research findings and state-of-the-art treatment options in Movement Disorders, including Parkinson's disease. Over 5,000 physicians and medical professionals from more than 86 countries will be able to view over 2,200 scientific abstracts submitted by clinicians from around the world.

About the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society: The International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (MDS), an international society of over 5,000 clinicians, scientists, and other healthcare professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. For more information about MDS, visit http://www.movementdisorders.org. Reported by PRWeb 40 minutes ago.

Around 500,000 patients with Premera health insurance will have fewer in-network choices next year because the Montlake Terrace-based health insurer couldn't reach a contract deal with Providence St. Joseph Health. That means all Providence, Swedish, PacMed and Kadlec providers will no longer be in network for anyone covered by Premera Blue Cross in 2017. Colleen Wadden, a spokeswoman for Providence, said that could include around half a million people. More than 60,000 patients in the Providence… Reported by bizjournals 4 days ago.

The new peak means the Obama administration will pass the problem of high health care costs on to its successor. The report from number crunchers at the Department of Health and Human Services projects that health care spending will grow at a faster rate than the national economy over the coming decade. Growth is projected to average 5.8 percent from 2015 to 2025, below the pace before the 2007-09 recession but faster than in recent years that saw health care spending moving in step with modest economic growth. Medicare and Medicaid are expected to grow more rapidly than private insurance as Baby Boomers age. By 2025, government at all levels will account for nearly half of health care spending, at 47 percent. The report also projects that the share of Americans with health insurance will remain above 90 percent, assuming that President Obama’s law survives continued Republican attacks. The Chinese government is believed to have hacked into computers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2010, 2011 and 2013, including the workstation of then-FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair, a congressional report says. The report issued Wednesday by the Republican majority staff of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee cites a May 2013 memo from the FDIC inspector general to agency Chairman Martin Gruenberg. The memo described an “advanced persistent threat,” said to have come from the Chinese government, which compromised 12 computer workstations and 10 servers at the FDIC. In addition to those incidents, the committee staff has been investigating the FDIC’s response to a number of what it calls major data breaches at the agency and whether it is properly safeguarding consumers’ banking information. China and the United States have already established a high-level joint dialogue mechanism on fighting cybercrime and related issues. The Federal Aviation Administration announced in April that it would lift all the restrictions at Newark, essentially opening it to as many flights and airlines that could secure gate space at the airport. The FAA announcement arrived five months after the Department of Justice sued United to block it from acquiring additional slots at the airport, a major hub for the carrier just a few miles from New York City. The government argued that United controlled about 900 of the 1,200 takeoff and landing authorizations allocated to the airport by the FAA, while no other airline held more than 70. Uber will suspend its operations in Hungary indefinitely on July 24, when new rules regulating passenger transport are due to take effect, company officials said Wednesday. MGM Resorts International’s purchase of Boyd Gaming’s 50 percent stake in Atlantic City’s top casino, the Borgata, has received regulatory approval in New Jersey. MGM will oversee operations of the property and will merge Borgata’s customer loyalty program with its own. Reported by SFGate 4 days ago.