Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Mr. McCain’s Definition of ‘Best Coverage’, Pt.8 – Greater efficiency, anyone left behind?

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Mr. McCain is championing another very good cause for health insurance/care reform. He is taking a much-needed stand to finally streamline the import of medicines. He is committing to, not only make it easier to import the less-expensive drugs, but also to greatly reduce the time it takes to do so. This is a very good thing. Also, a very good move is to proactively institute preventive measures on chronic problems. It is estimated that 75% of health insurance/care spending in the US is needlessly consumed by ‘preventable diseases and behaviors’ like: “asthma, diabetes, obesity and smoking,” according to Mr. Post. Mr. McCain’s health insurance/care plan will subsidize all these improvements.

Another area that has unanimous support is controlling health cost efficiency. Both candidates endorse this and have similar strategies to attack it in their health insurance/care reform proposals. They each speak of electronic medical information systems; capable of delivering medical records and related materials wherever and whenever they’re needed both quickly and cheaply. Both their health insurance/care reform proposals also promote common information between doctors and specialists to reduce expensive duplication and mis-information. Comprehensive efforts are planned to reduce administrative costs and provide more effective care, even including care-provider performance ratings and rewards.

We have seen some sound ideas here, some which will require some further detail and some that have not been addressed. We need more clarity on the $10 billion tagged for assisting the poor in getting health insurance, when most experts agree that the requirement will be closer to $120 billion. We have heard little from Mr. McCain on his commitment to drive these initiatives against opposition and even less on ‘not leaving anybody behind’, as he has phrased it on other occasions. What about these 45.7 million uninsured? Is he committed to help all of these who want it, or only place a band-aid to only help a few of them?

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