Today is Thursday, May 17, 2012

HSAs

Tax increases required by ObamaCare

A "comprehensive list of tax hikes in ObamaCare" is here.

Will Congress demand business plans from the United Auto Workers union? Questions for the UAW

Most people discussing the proposed bailouts of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Chrysler, Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) fail to ask the hard questions that should posed to Ron Gettelfinger, the president of the UAW in Thursday’s and Friday’s Congressional hearings.

After all, we’re talking about a bailout of the UAW’s leaders and its members, not just a bailout for the U.S. auto industry.

Questions for the UAW’s Gettelfinger:

1. Has the UAW prepared and submitted specific plans for how it would help each of the auto makers restructure and survive?
2. Did the president of the UAW and his staff fly by private jet to Washington for the hearings?
3. Will the president of the UAW and the presidents of the UAW’s GM, Ford and Chrysler local unions take $1-per-year salaries until the companies are profitable?
4. Since the CEOs of the Detroit-based companies have taken 100% pay cuts and many of their staffs are taking big pay cuts, will UAW members accept 50% cuts in their very inflated hourly compensatin of some $73 and hour, including benefits for themselves and retirees?
5. Will the UAW agree to drastic changes in work rules that are needed to help the auto makers be competitive with Toyota and Honda?
6. Will the UAW agree that it will not strike locally or nationally until all of the auto makers are profitable?
7. Will the UAW cut the number of union bosses working in auto companies’ still operating factories by 50%?
8. Will the UAW grant the concessions it gives the automakers to the auto industry suppliers where it has members and contracts?
9. Will the UAW members and retirees give up their gold plated, first dollar health insurance plans for cost-effective, high deductible health insurance plans?
10. Will the UAW cut its union dues to $1 per month until the auto companies become profitable, just to show it’s commitment to the auto industry?

My guess is that all 10 questions would draw 10 negative responses.

Gov. Sarah Palin promotes health care competition, specialty clinics

Alaska’s Sarah Palin, who is running for vice president with Sen. John McCain, has better health care policy sense than Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden.

Palin has pushed for less regulation of health care providers and more competition, while Obama and Biden are pushing for socialized medicine and ultimately a single-payer plan patterned after the failed systems in Canada and the U.K.

Her approach, which is described by the Washington Post here, is supported by many physicians and advocates of a pro-competition approach to health care and health insurance market reforms, and it will be opposed by executives and employees of entrenched hospitals and local health care monopolies and ologopolies who don’t want to lose business to independent clinics and specialty hospitals.

At Modern Healthcare where I was editor for 10 years and at Health Care Strategic Management, which I owned and edited for almost 19 years, I wrote editorials against certificates of need, which are used by entrenched hospitals to keep entrepreneurs, including members of their medical staffs, from entering their markets.

While clinics and specialty hospitals cherry pick profitable business from hospitals, that’s a good thing, not a bad one as hospital executives would have you believe. More competition gives patients better quality and more convenient services. Whether increased competition lowers or raises prices isn’t the point as long as employers and other third-party payers pay most of the cost, making patients price insensitive.

Take employers and other third parties out of the markets, and increased provider competition would drop prices substantially.

Enrollees in HSAs are more careful about how they use health care services

Consumers enrolled in health savings accounts are less likely to seek preventive care and minor care services than those enrolled in traditional low-deductible, higher premium health insurance plans. That’s the Galen Institute’s interpretation of survyes that show consumers are signing up for HSAs slower than expected.

Homer Brickey at the Toledo Blade has a good overview of how consumers are reacting to HSAs.

HSAs expanded in Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006

Health savings accounts will be more attractive under the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.

Click head to see summary:

 

73% of employers will raise deductibles, offer HSAs

The health insurance market is responding to soaring health insurance premiums and to new incentives for employers to shift more health care costs to workers by increasing deductibles and offering Health Savings Accounts.