- Home
- About Us
- Contributors
- Departments
- Topics
- Back Issues
- Weekly Archives
- AmSpecBlog
- Subscribe
- Newsletter
- Advertise
- Donate
- Contact Us
- Daily Digest
- Templeton Essays
AmSpecBlog
Obama Touts Safeway Health Program, But Dem Bill Would Kill It
President Obama had this to say in his just completed speech to the American Medical Association:
Building a health care system that promotes prevention rather than just managing diseases will require all of us to do our part. It will take doctors telling us what risk factors we should avoid and what preventive measures we should pursue. And it will take employers following the example of places like Safeway that is rewarding workers for taking better care of their health while reducing health care costs in the process. If you're one of the three quarters of Safeway workers enrolled in their "Healthy Measures" program, you can get screened for problems like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And if you score well, you can pay lower premiums. It's a program that has helped Safeway cut health care spending by 13% and workers save over 20% on their premiums. And we are open to doing more to help employers adopt and expand programs like this one.
But as I reported last week, the CEO of Safeway said the company would have to end the program if the current Democratic proposal in the Senate were enacted. The problem is that the legislation includes a policy known as "community rating" which bars insurers from charging people different premiums based on their health status. Therefore, an insurer (or business) cannot give discounts to those who weigh less, don't smoke, maintain lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and so on.
Comments
Leave a Comment
John O'Brien| 6.15.09 @ 3:48PM
Community rating would not prevent rewarding people who regularly participate in weight management programs, smoking cessation programs, and medication adherence programs. Most public health scholars agree that you should reward behavior, not success or failure. This way you don't discriminate against patients with genetically high cholesterol while trying to motivate a patient who refuses to diet/exercise/take their medicine how it was prescribed.
2Anglico| 6.15.09 @ 4:06PM
Community rating is exactly what it says, rating over an ENTIRE community. This is a BIG GOVERNMENT solution to FORCE insurance companies to charge the SAME premium for everybody in the same "community". Why did the GOVERNMENT want to do this? Because it wasn't "FAIR" to charge sick customers higher premiums. And GOVERNMENT "FAIRNESS" is what brought about charging families the SAME premium for 1 child or 8!!!! The list of GOVERNMENT induced BS is ENDLESS. Thanks, but NO thanks.
Pingback| 6.15.09 @ 4:12PM
Democrats Seek to Kill Health Care Program Obama Praises - BrianFaughnan’s blog - Re links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 6.15.09 @ 5:06PM
“Sweatin’ to the Oldies with Obama”: Mandated Food and Exercise in Store for America links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 6.15.09 @ 5:07PM
Obama’s Rationed Health Care Plan for America: A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words « Frug links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pete| 6.15.09 @ 6:59PM
Crushing, just crushing. Bad day at work and now this...the President is a liar...just crushing. Who knew?
Pingback| 6.15.09 @ 10:39PM
Another CEO Obama Did Not Bother to Listen To - Redhot - RedState links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 6.18.09 @ 4:54PM
Obama’s AMA Comment Deleted by ‘Times’, Press Sec. Gibbs Can’t Name One Country Wher links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 6.19.09 @ 7:06PM
Bad News: Sen. Feingold Admits What We’ve Suspected All Along: Obama’s “Public” Heal links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 6.19.09 @ 7:34PM
Suspicious: WH Says “Obama’s Rhetoric Shouldn’t Be Taken Literally” Concerning Promi links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 8.13.09 @ 11:45AM
Another CEO Obama Did Not Bother to Listen To - Redhot - RedState web01.prod.theplan links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
NFL jerseys| 9.7.09 @ 11:32PM
It is a wonderful article,I like it!Welcome to read following news: NFL jersey,ghd Hair Straightener,NFL jerseys,Photoshop CS2,Adobe Photoshop CS4,cheap uggs.
TexasTriathlete| 1.10.10 @ 6:31PM
With regards to Mr. O'Brien's comments about rewarding people for their behavior and not their success or failure, this is a classic case of academic discussion versus practical applications. In theory, the public health scholars might say this is the right action, but in reality, when you do this the public has no skin in the game. Would you like a president that tries to make air travel safe (and fails) or a president that actually makes air travel safe? I’m sorry - but in the real world people do what you incent them to. If you reward them for going to a stop-smoking program, they will do that, and nothing more. Until the “scholars” can prove that attending such programs actually result in a meaningful number of people actually quitting smoking long-term, we’ll just end up spending money on programs and not having any real reduction in healthcare costs.
Let’s get real – we want “pay for performance” from our CEO’s who got bailout money from our government. Why is it too much to ask for results from people who want healthcare bailout money? I don’t mind paying taxes for public healthcare, but each person bears a responsibility to care for themselves so we don’t bring the whole system down. The autoworker’s unions managed to bankrupt their employers, and now the general public is going to bankrupt their own government. ..
Carol| 1.20.10 @ 11:12PM
Here are the results of the government's $625 million randomized controlled dietary modification trial on 165,000 women.
Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of invasive breast cancer: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. JAMA. 2006 Feb 8;295(6):629-642. "The number of women who developed invasive breast cancer (annualized incidence rate) over the 8.1-year average follow-up period was 655 (0.42%) in the intervention group and 1072 (0.45%) in the comparison group (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-1.01 ... CONCLUSIONS: Among postmenopausal women, a low-fat dietary pattern did not result in a statistically significant reduction in invasive breast cancer risk over an 8.1-year average follow-up period."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467232
Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of colorectal cancer: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. JAMA 2006 Feb 8;295(6):643-54. "Intervention group participants significantly reduced their percentage of energy from fat by 10.7% more than did the comparison group at 1 year, and this difference between groups was mostly maintained (8.1% at year 6). Statistically significant increases in vegetable, fruit, and grain servings were also made. Despite these dietary changes, there was no evidence that the intervention reduced the risk of invasive colorectal cancer during the follow-up period. There were 201 women with invasive colorectal cancer (0.13% per year) in the intervention group and 279 (0.12% per year) in the comparison group (hazard ratio, 1.08; 95% confidence interval, 0.90-1.29)."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467233
Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of cardiovascular disease: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. JAMA 2006 Feb 8;295(6):655-666. "The diet had no significant effects on incidence of CHD (hazard ratio 0.97; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90-1.06), stroke (HR, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.90-1.15), or CVD (HR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.92-1.05). "Over a mean of 8.1 years, a dietary intervention that reduced total fat intake and increased intakes of vegetables, fruits, and grains did not significantly reduce the risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD in postmenopausal women and achieved only modest effects on CVD risk factors..."
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467234
Multivitamin use and risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease in the Women's Health Initiative cohorts. Arch Intern Med 2009 Feb 9;169(3):294-304. "8751 CVD events; and 9865 deaths were reported. Multivariate-adjusted analyses revealed no association of multivitamin use with risk of cancer (hazard ratio 0.98, and 95% confidence interval 0.91-1.05 for breast cancer; HR, 0.99, and 95% CI, 0.88-1.11 for colorectal cancer; HR, 1.05, and 95% CI, 0.90-1.21 for endometrial cancer; HR, 1.0, and 95% CI, 0.88-1.13 for lung cancer; and HR, 1.07, and 95% CI, 0.88-1.29 for ovarian cancer); CVD (HR, 0.96, and 95% CI, 0.89-1.03 for myocardial infarction; HR, 0.99, and 95% CI, 0.91-1.07 for stroke; and HR, 1.05, and 95% CI, 0.85-1.29 for venous thromboembolism); or mortality (HR, 1.02, and 95% CI, 0.97-1.07). CONCLUSION: After a median follow-up of 8.0 and 7.9 years in the clinical trial and observational study cohorts, respectively, the Women's Health Initiative study provided convincing evidence that multivitamin use has little or no influence on the risk of common cancers, CVD, or total mortality in postmenopausal women."
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19204221
Low-fat, increased fruit, vegetable, and grain dietary pattern, fractures, and bone mineral density: the Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial. Am J Clin Nutr 2009 Jun;89(6):1864-76. "After a mean 8.1 y of follow-up, 215 women in the intervention group and 285 women in the comparison group (annualized rate: 0.14% and 0.12%, respectively) experienced a hip fracture (hazard ratio: 1.12; 95% CI: 0.94, 1.34; P = 0.21)... A low-fat and increased fruit, vegetable, and grain diet intervention modestly reduced the risk of multiple falls and slightly lowered hip BMD but did not change the risk of osteoporotic fractures."
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19403636
Isn't it great to have ignoramuses who don't know what they're talking about demanding control over everyone's lifestyle!
jty| 1.26.10 @ 10:19PM
Tod Converter Mac,
dvd converter for mac