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Page revision date: November 13, 2007

The Future of Health Care presentation

• The future of health care

"Facts and Fallacies" behind some of the statistics being used by some who advocate for the expansion of government's role in the financing of health care

Beyond Those Health Care Numbers - by N. Gregory Mankiw, Professor of Economics at Harvard University

Published on November 4, 2007 in the New York Times

Illinois General Assembly update

• Update from ISAHU contract lobbyist Phil Lackman
• Governor's emergency health care expansion blocked (Crain's Chicago Business - November 13, 2007)

2008 Presidential Candidate Health Care Proposals: Side-by-Side Summary

http://www.health08.org/sidebyside.cfm?CFID=18520578&CFTOKEN=43268044

Dr. Goodman's Health Alert (November 5, 2007) - Grading the Candidates

Common Sense Guide to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) - Roy Ramthun

Perspectives concerning SCHIP reauthorization / expansion

• Disconnect Over Children's Health: Plan for Poor Stalls as President, Congress Debate Government's Role, Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2007, Page A4

          Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute:

• There Are Better Ways to Insure Kids (October 18, 2007)
• Truth about Bush's SCHIP veto doesn't match harsh rhetoric (October 15, 2007)
• Uncovering Facts (October 12, 2007)
• The Bill the President Vetoed (October 10, 2007)
• Rome ‘n SCHIP (October 5, 2007)
• Principles for Reauthorization of SCHIP (September 25, 2007)
• Shape Up SCHIP (September 18, 2007)
• Stay Focused on SCHIP (September 17, 2007)
• SCHIP Guidelines: Principles for Health Insurance Coverage for Children and Families (September 17, 2007)
• Recommendations for Reauthorization of the SCHIP program: Cover Kids First (September 17, 2007)

• State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization, National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU)
• "How to Argue against SCHIP," Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute
• "Catholics against SCHIP," Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute
• "Yet Another Reason Not to Be Too Enamored of SCHIP," Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute

News and research concerning recent state-based initiatives

• DIRIGO: As Health Plan Falters Maine Explores Changes (April 30, 2007 NY Times article)
• Illinois Tax Implosion - the political limits of universal health care (May 14, 2007 WSJ Opinion Journal)
• At one year, Mass. healthcare plan falls short - Boston Globe, May 15, 2007
• Payroll Tax Will Devastate California Small Business Economy (May 16, 2007)
• Health Insurance Connectors / Exchanges:

  • NAHU's Connector study- a new independent academic research study on the legal and economic issues associate with state-level health insurance connector or exchange proposals.

  • Massachusetts Connector's page - www.mahealthconnector.org
• What Can States Do to Reform Health Care (the big picture) - Michael F. Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute

Government-run healthcare

• Bush: Knock out the props from Hillary’s socialized medicine scheme

• The Freedom to Spend Your Own Money on Medical Care: A Common Casualty of Universal Coverage - by Kent Masterson Brown
• Impatient for Change (The Stockholm Network, 2004)
• Poles Apart (The Stockholm Network, 2005)
• Quebec Strikes Down Ban on Private Coverage (2006)
• Lessons from Europe and Canada - Undermining Patient Choice
• Swiss vote rejects single health insurer plan (March 12, 2007 Business Insurance article)
• Dead Meat documentary on the Canadian healthcare system - http://www.onthefencefilms.com/video/deadmeat/
• Sick and Sicker documentary - http://www.sickandsickermovie.com/index.html - will explore the ethics and realities of a government take-over of the health care system.

Health system reform ideas that either are market-based or at the very least have significant market-oriented components

• Universal Health Accounts - America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)
• “Better Health Care Together” Campaign (AT&T, Baker Center, Center for American Progress, CED, CWA, Intel, Kelly Services, SEIU And Wal-Mart)
• Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform (CAHR)
• Affordable Health Care - The Health Care Freedom Coalition
• Healthy Access - National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU)
• A 21st Century Intelligent Healthcare Solution (Ron Bachman, Healthcare Visions, Inc.)
• Insuring all Americans: Developing a 300 million payer system (Ron Bachman, Healthcare Visions, Inc.)
• Consumerism: The basis for a 21st century intelligent health system (Ron Bachman, Healthcare Visions, Inc.)

"Whose Body Is It, Anyway?  Sick in America" - Special aired on ABC-TV's 20/20 program on September 14, 2007

ABC’s 20/20 program on Friday evening, September 14th, featured a special by John Stossel called "Whose Body Is It, Anyway?  Sick in America".  Guests interviewed by John Stossel included Dr. Regina Herzlinger (Harvard Business School professor and author of “Who Killed Health Care?: America’s $2 Trillion Medical Problem – and the Consumer-Driven Cure”), Dr. John Goodman from the National Center for Policy Analysis, Grace-Marie Turner with the Galen Institute, Michael Moore, Michael Cannon from the Cato Institute, and Karen Ignani from AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans).  

An excellent sound bite from John Stossel’s interview of Michael Moore came when the camera showed Michael Moore praising Canada’s system for the longevity outcomes (Canadians live 3 years longer than Americans), to which John Stossel's response was something like, “C’mon Michael, the reasons Canadians live longer is that Americans are 3 times more likely to die in auto accidents, 10 times more likely to die as a victim of a violent crime, and, frankly, many of us look like you” – referring to Moore’s obesity.

In case you’re interested, this special may be viewed for free on YouTube.  Here are the links to the 6 parts of the show.  The entire viewing time without commercial interruption is 41 minutes, 30 seconds.

Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aEXFUbSbg1I – 8 min., 43 sec.

Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BpsEAVbCkMM&mode=related&search= – 7 min., 27 sec.

Part 3: http://youtube.com/watch?v=refrYKq9tZQ&mode=related&search= – 7 min., 23sec.

Part 4: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YGj4Ei9l0iI&mode=related&search= – 5 min., 26 sec.

Part 5: http://youtube.com/watch?v=PlNtWy8TX_Y&mode=related&search= – 5 min., 56 sec.

Part 6: http://youtube.com/watch?v=E_KCLm9cekU&mode=related&search= – 6 min., 35 sec.

Market-oriented healthcare policy / reform

• Living Without Health Insurance - Why Every American Needs Coverage (Galen Institute)
• Ten Principles of Health Care Policy - Heartland Institute
• State Premium Subsidy Programs (National Association of Health Underwriters)
• Creating an HSA State (2007) (Center for Health Transformation)
• Administrative cost differentials between public and private health insurance
• Health Care Consumerism - Myths versus Facts

Recent state government initiatives for expanding access to private health insurance

Recent state government premium subsidy initiatives aimed at individuals

• Utah’s UPP program - http://health.utah.gov/upp/faqs.htm

• State of Washington’s Basic Health program – http://www.basichealth.hca.wa.gov/

• Oregon’s Family Health Insurance Assistance Program (FHIAP) -  http://www.oregon.gov/OPHP/FHIAP/member.shtml

Recent state government premium subsidy initiatives aimed at businesses

• Oklahoma’s O-EPIC Employer-Sponsored Insurance program - http://www.oepic.ok.gov/index.aspx

• Kansas - http://www.ksrevenue.org/taxcredits-employer.htm

• Kentucky ICARE program - http://doi.ppr.ky.gov/kentucky/docs.asp?Divid=28

• Healthy New York – Indirect subsidy to small businesses through a reinsurance mechanism http://www.ins.state.ny.us/website2/hny/english/hny.htm

Market developments

• Customer Health Care
• Revolution Health

• Is there a role for markets in health care? (June 14, 2007)

Market-oriented thought leaders - In the 3 years that I have been associated with Chicago-based Heartland Institute as a health care policy advisor I have met some really great people in the policy world.  My personal “short list” of 17 market-oriented thought leaders on the subject of health care policy include the following individuals:

1. Mr. Ron Bachman, Healthcare Visions, Inc., ronbachman@healthcarevisions.net
2. Mr. Tarren Bragdon (“Mr. Dirigo”), Director of Health Reform Initiatives, The Maine Heritage Policy Center, tbragdon@mainepolicy.org
3. Dr. John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), http://www.ncpa.org/abo/staff/jcgoodman.html
4. Devon Herrick, Ph. D., Senior Fellow on Health Care, National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), http://www.ncpa.org/abo/staff/dherrick.html
5. Dr. Regina E. Herzlinger, Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, (http://dor.hbs.edu/fi_redirect.jhtml?facInfo=bio&facEmId=rherzlinger)
6. Dr. Arnold Kling - http://arnoldkling.com/
7. Dr. Merrill Matthews, Resident Scholar, Institute for Policy Innovation, mmatthews@ipi.org, policyguy1@aol.com

8. Ms. Nina Owcharenko - http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/NinaOwcharenko.cfm

9. Dr. Mark Pauly, Wharton School professor (http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/pauly.html).
10. Ms. Sally Pipes, Pacific Research Institute, http://www.pacificresearch.org/about/team.html#pipes
11. Dr. Michael E. Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School (http://dor.hbs.edu/fi_redirect.jhtml?facInfo=bio&facEmId=mporter&loc=extn
12. Mr. Roy Ramthun, HSA Consulting Services, LLC, former Treasury Department official and White House senior health policy advisor
13. Mr. Greg Scandlen, founder of Consumers for Health Care Choices, http://www.chcchoices.org/about.html#founder
14. Mr. Michael Tanner, Director of Health and Welfare Studies, Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/people/tanner.html
15. Mr. Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/people/cannon.html
16. Ms. Grace-Marie Turner, President, Galen Institute, http://www.galen.org/fileuploads/Grace_Marie_Turner.pdf
17. Mr. J.P. Wieske, Director of State Affairs, Council for Affordable Health Insurance, jpwieske@cahi.org