President Obama's budget chief isn't sugarcoating his message to health insurance executives: the party is over.
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said Tuesday the government will no longer overpay companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run portion of the government health program for seniors.
For more than 10 years, companies like Humana Inc. and UnitedHealth have defended their plans, pointing out they offer lower premiums and extra benefits compared with government-run Medicare. More than 10 million of the 44 million seniors in Medicare receive care through the plans.
But Orszag reiterated what industry executives have long known: the government spends significantly more money on Medicare Advantage than its own plan. When private insurers first entered the Medicare program in the late 1990s, many lawmakers assumed companies would lower costs with their managed-care strategies.
More than a decade later, though, the government spends about $1.30 on Medicare Advantage patients for each dollar it spends on patients in traditional Medicare, Orszag said, speaking at the America's Health Insurance Plans' annual conference.
He added that the cost burden falls on taxpayers as well as patients in regular Medicare, who pay higher premiums.
"I believe in competition. I don't believe in paying $1.30 to get a dollar," Orszag told conference attendees, including representatives from Aetna Inc., WellPoint Inc. and Cigna Corp.
The group's president, Karen Ignagni, said insurers would offer alternative proposals for controlling Medicare costs and hoped the White House would consider them.
Orszag's address came less than a week after President Obama kicked off his health reform effort with a massive summit at the White House. In his remarks to more than 100 health care experts and stakeholders, Obama said he is willing to compromise on details to reach his overall goal of improving care and covering more people. As one of the interest groups that helped derail the Clinton health reform effort in the early '90s, gaining health insurers' cooperation is critical.
But Orszag showed little intention of compromising on the Medicare Advantage issue. In his previous job as director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Orszag frequently warned lawmakers that the ballooning cost of Medicare was among the greatest threats to the nation's long-term economic health.
Under President Obama's recent budget proposal, Medicare Advantage companies would have to compete to offer their services in different parts of the country. The government payment for each region would be based on the average bid submitted by companies, saving $177 billion over 10 years, according to the White House. Under the existing system, payments are calculated annually using a preset formula.
Worries about the plan have sent shares of health insurers nosediving over the past several weeks, as investors were concerned about the effect on the insurers' profitable Medicare Advantage business.
Orszag reiterated Tuesday that the best chance to solve the country's current health care predicament is to eliminate billions of dollars worth of wasteful spending. He pointed out that different regions of the country spend vastly different sums on seniors in Medicare, without showing much difference in health outcomes.
The budget director cited figures from researchers at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy, who for decades have documented unnecessary care in the U.S. Researchers there have estimated that about 30 percent of U.S. health care spending, or $700 billion, could be eliminated without hurting the quality of care.
Orszag assured executives that insurers are not the only group being asked to change how they do business. As part of his economic stimulus package, Obama provided $1.1 billion in funding for research comparing the effectiveness of various medical treatments. By rewarding physicians for using the most efficient practices, the administration hopes to reduce health care costs.
"We are pushing hard on changing incentives for providers so that we are rewarding better care and not more care," Orszag said.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health
In response to a request from the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL) at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Institute of Medicine has formed a standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health.
The committee provides a forum for discussion of scientific and technical issues relevant to the development, certification, deployment, and use of personal protective equipment, standards, and related systems to ensure workplace safety and health.
Topics that may be addressed by the Committee on Personal Protective Equipment or by sponsored workshops and future studies by IOM committees include:
the need for expert guidance on state-of-the-art materials and systems, and laboratory and field research strategies;
development of criteria and standards for practice and operations, including management and communications; and identification of best practices for interagency cooperation with partners and stakeholders.
Additional topics include
training and education;
creating equipment user-guidance documents;
improving access to information by stakeholders; and
performance measurement strategies.
The committee will also provide liaison and oversight to ad hoc study committees requested by NIOSH and approved by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academies, and will coordinate with the Academies' on-going review of NIOSH Research Program.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Environment & Urbanization
We live in a world that is changing very rapidly. The pollution of our land, air and water has caused changes that we are only beginning to understand. In developed countries, a large amount of excess food and goods go to waste, while half of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. The Internet can connect people across the 
world in ways our ancestors could never imagine, but natural resources are diminishing rapidly as the process of urbanization moves across country-sides. As individuals we did not create these problems, but as individuals we can solve them. Every single one of us depends on the planet, and every single one of us is responsible for its survival. Changing the ways in which we live in can be very difficult, but it is possible. As a society, we must relearn our respect for nature.
The earth is the foundation of all life. The ways that we grow our food, produce our goods and power our homes and cities are depleting resources, polluting the planet and drastically reducing the biodiversity of our planet. By increasing our respect for nature in all its incarnations, we will have taken a big step towards building a sustainable future. Sustainable living will protect the resources that help us to live and enjoy life for future generations. In this section, you can learn about the major issues that affect our planet today, from climate change to animal rights, and about what we can do now for those to come. Furthermore, as you will see, the environment goes hand-in-hand with human rights and economic justice: a culture of peace cannot be built without an understanding of how deeply all of these issues are interwoven
The earth is the foundation of all life. The ways that we grow our food, produce our goods and power our homes and cities are depleting resources, polluting the planet and drastically reducing the biodiversity of our planet. By increasing our respect for nature in all its incarnations, we will have taken a big step towards building a sustainable future. Sustainable living will protect the resources that help us to live and enjoy life for future generations. In this section, you can learn about the major issues that affect our planet today, from climate change to animal rights, and about what we can do now for those to come. Furthermore, as you will see, the environment goes hand-in-hand with human rights and economic justice: a culture of peace cannot be built without an understanding of how deeply all of these issues are interwoven
Education
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Sunday, February 8, 2009
How to Earn Extra Money With a Free Blog
Because anybody can start a blog on any subject that they want blogging has become a major hobby for internet users. Blogs have become popular because there basically free websites and allow anybody to have a presence online. Eventually there will be more blog owners then website owners.
In the past blogs were mainly used by everyday internet users to express there opinions. But more recently people have begun using blogs to earn an extra income by signing up for affiliate programs.
There are two ways that bloggers can use affiliate programs to earn extra money. The first is to promote affiliate products. No matter what your interest are there is an affiliate product for it, so you can create blogs on any subject that you want and then recommend affiliate products to your readers. For every purchase you'll earn a commission.
The second way to make money on blogs is to place ads on your blog. With ads you'll get paid everytime somebody clicks on them. A great place to find ads to put on your blog is google adwords. Once you submit your blog to them they will recommend the best ads for you to have on your blog.
Affiliate programs offer something for everybody, so after your first blog is successful you can create a new blog and advertise different affiliate products or ads to earn even more money. The only thing you have to worry about with affiliate programs is making sure that you pick the right one. If the affiliate program that your using isn't in context with your blog you will drive people away from it.
With a little bit of work any blog can be turned into a money maker.
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Monday, February 2, 2009
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Thursday, January 29, 2009
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
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Sunday, January 11, 2009
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Saturday, January 3, 2009
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Thursday, January 1, 2009
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