White House to help close healthcare loophole

[HopeOverFear]

WASHINGTON — In a victory for people with cancer and other serious medical problems, the White House agreed Friday to help close a loophole in the Senate health care bill allowing annual dollar limits on their care.

"The president has made it clear that health insurance reform legislation should prevent insurance companies from placing annual limits on health expenditures that can force families into financial ruin," said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin. "We will continue to work with Congress on this policy."

"The bottom line is they are going to try to improve the Senate bill," said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, which first called attention to the problem.

Tucked in a clause of the Senate bill captioned "No lifetime or annual limits" is a provision that would in fact permit such caps.

As currently written, the Democratic bill would allow insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as the limits are not "unreasonable." The legislation does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials.

Proponents said such limits are necessary to prevent premiums from going up overall.

[Kdillard]

1. Good.

[Cha]

2. Kick for the White House

getting their way.

[Mind_your_head]

3. Pfffft.....just "who" decides what is 'unreasonable' or not?

cancer is/has been the boogey man who taps on practically everyone's door these days.

How much money has been donated/spent on cancer "research"? And yet we don't have any CURES ~ OR ~ identifying causation. Cancer was very very rare prior to the twentieth century....Sure, you've got people who live much longer now, but that doesn't explain all of the CHILDREN who suffer from cancer these days.

[vaberella]

4. It's due to hormones in food, climate change, and probably meds mums are put on during pregnancy.

I'm just tossing things out there..

[jtrockville]

15. Insurance industry BEAN COUNTERS decide everything.

Pharma isn't going to invest in any cures they can't sell for huge profits. If a cancer cures could be marketed as profitably as the drugs that give men a stiffy, we'd have one already.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. This is such BS. No caps, no limits, no priors, were ALL points touted over

and over as being the fundamentals of reform.

Caps and limits are why people with coverage,( the WHOLE point of "Sicko") go bankrupt DESPITE BEING INSURED!!!!!!!

So who slipped this little beauty in and why wasn't it noticed?

WHO THE F!@#$ WRITES THESE F!@#KING BILLS???!!!

[vaberella]

7. Texas managed to outlaw marriage. I haven't a clue, if that says something about our lawmakers. n/t

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. Clause 217189 sub paragraph C: NO annual dollar limits

will be forbidden under this clause unless someone reads this clause and calls attention to it, in which case the White House will "help" close such stated loophole. Such help will comprise White House staffers calling involved Representatives with the message - "Cheese it, they're on to it" such message self-destructing within 20 seconds of onset.

[slipslidingaway]

8. Good, now let Medicare negotiate drug prices for ALL participants...

the Obama HC plan said we could save up to 30 billion per year, instead a deal was cut for 8 billion.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-healthcare-pharma4-2009aug04,0,3660985.story

"Reporting from Washington - As a candidate for president, Barack Obama lambasted drug companies and the influence they wielded in Washington. He even ran a television ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.

Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn't try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail..."

[vaberella]

9. Don't forget if we get drug reimportation passed...we're even better off

And the WH has publicly supported the Dorgan-Snowe Amendment.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

10. Key words - "publicly supported"

since they did a previous horse trade, the details of which are still not officially known, although the pledge of 80 Billion over 10 years (a DROP in the golden goose bucket)by Pharma was supposed to preclude drug negoitation - did it also include re-importation?

Not to mention just what a f!@#ing farce re-importation is, . . . oh, I can't even continue to post. Just . . . too . . . weary . . .

[slipslidingaway]

13. From the beginning it has reportedly included both :( n/t

[vaberella]

16. reimportation is a fare?! Being able to buy my medicine from France or England is a farce?

I pay 160 for drugs in the Us per month. In France I'm paying 30. How is that a farce?

[liberalpragmatist]

11. Reimportation is such a ridiculous dodge

"Let's not let OUR government negotiate drug prices - instead we'll let Canada negotiate drug prices and buy them from there!"

No, just fucking let OUR government negotiate drug prices.

[slipslidingaway]

14. Do not be such a pragmatist :)) Sad part is that even Vitter gets it ...

and so did Obama during the campaign.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/david_vitter_and_the_advantage.html

"...Well, Canada's government bargains its prices down. So does the French government, and the German government, and the British government. The results of this strategy are not in doubt: These countries pay far less than we do for the exact same drugs. Our solution? We will go to these countries and buy these drugs!

But that's an odd solution. It's as if Wal-mart noticed that Costco had better prices on moisturizer and so directed its employees to go buy moisturizer from Costco. But Wal-Mart is, of course, bigger than Costco! It can get better prices by negotiating on its own behalf. And it wouldn't be paying Coscto's mark-up, to boot.

But Medicare, and the federal government more generally, are barred from doing the same. And this isn't just about drugs. The story is similar for everything from surgeries to doctor's visits. It's just harder to ship those over a border, and so there's no demand to do so. But we could bargain prices here as surely as they can bargain them there. The fact that we can't mimic Canada's prices through an inefficient and illogical program doesn't mean we couldn't do it through a straightforward and logical one..."

[vaberella]

17. It's not about negotiating for me, it's the possibility of getting much cheaper generic drugs.

This is viewed as a bad thing----you're kidding me.

[jberryhill]

23. In the long run, it's about having prices raised for others

But they are not you. So as long as you are okay, the world is in fine shape.

What do you think happens in country X when Americans are able to pay marginally more to purchase drugs in that country?

What do you think happens to the supply in that country?

Do you care about anyone other than yourself?

[slipslidingaway]

12. He promised both and I disagree that we will be better off ...

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf

Pages 4 and 5...

"...Allow consumers to import safe drugs from other countries. The second-fastest growing type of
health expenses is prescription drugs.29 Pharmaceutical companies should profit when their research and
development results in a groundbreaking new drug. But some companies are exploiting Americans by
dramatically overcharging U.S. consumers. These companies are selling the exact same drugs in Europe
and Canada but charging Americans a 67 percent premium.30 Barack Obama and Joe Biden will allow
Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are
lower outside the U.S.

...Allow Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug prices. The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug
Improvement and Modernization Act bans the government from negotiating down the prices of
prescription drugs, even though the Department of Veterans Affairs’ negotiation of prescription drug
prices with drug companies has garnered significant savings for taxpayers.32 Barack Obama and Joe
Biden will repeal the ban on direct negotiation with drug companies and use the resulting savings, which
could be as high as $30 billion,33 to further invest in improving health care coverage and quality..."

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

18. morning kick.

[optimator]

19. suuure they will

right now the white house's words are basically worthless.

[backscatter712]

20. GOOD!

Make enough noise calling 'em out and you get results!

Good work people!

Keep pushing!

[Peacetrain]

21. K&R...this is good

Got to start pulling out those poison pill and landmines and address them one by one.. Our people could use a little help..thanks Hope

[flyarm]

22. Harry Reid Slips Lifetime Limit Into Senate Bill

Harry Reid Slips Lifetime Limit Into Senate Bill

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/11/harry-reid-slips-lifetime-limit-into-senate-bill/

Harry Reid Slips Lifetime Limit Into Senate Bill
By: Jane Hamsher Friday December 11, 2009 8:34 am

When President Obama gave his speech on health care on September 10, he promised that there would be no limit on lifetime benefits under the health care bill:

They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick.

Harry Reid didn’t agree evidently. Reid, who is solely responsible for crafting the bill that he introduced in the Senate, decided that there should be a limit on lifetime benefits. So when people get sick and have huge bills for things like biologic drugs that cost $50,000 or $100,000 a year, whose bills could become “unreasonable” because Congress is granting drug manufacturers “indefinite monopolies” (per Henry Waxman) that prevent generics from coming to market to compete with them, Harry Reid thinks they should eventually be cut off:

A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.

The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote.

[BrklynLiberal]

24. I will believe when I see it...

[NJmaverick]

25. Thanks for posting I missed this

and this is the sort of thing I expected from President Obama

[Joe Chi Minh]

26. 'Proponents said such limits are necessary to prevent premiums from going up overall.

But that's what insurance is about, as Luis Guttierez, the Democratic Congressman, pointed out in this video:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=412055&mesg_id=412055

Snake oil, anyone?