When Will Obama’s Health Care Policies Become Reality?
When will Obama’s health care policies become reality?
Ah Never! Obama’s approach is to radical and would be completely ineffective at solving the real problems.Why are the costs of food, transportation, and even auto insurance not rising at the same pace as health insurance/ healthcare costs? The answer is that these other major segments of our economy function in a true marketplace where the consumer interacts directly with the provider of services.
Still don’t get it? How many of you know what the “true” cost of an average doctors visit or CAT Scan is? Answer, you really don’t. You may have said I pay a $25 copay when I go to the doctor, but that is not the true cost to someone walking in off the street without insurance.Now ask yourself what a gallon of milk costs? I’d be willing to bet 90% of you can come within $0.50 of knowing the answer.
It’s real simple, you don’t have the Grocery Company and your employer making decisions as to where you shop and what gallon of milk you buy thus driving up the costs. Obamacare is not a solution. If implemented costs would continue to rise, care would decrease, national debt would rise and we would have another wonderful beauracracy. Sounds like Utopia to me.
The people we work with are saving an average of $2,208/year on their health insurance premiums without sacrificing benefits. You owe it to yourself to find out how a HSA can benefit you. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 or info@iqhsa.com.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
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Compare Healthcare In The US, England, And Canada
Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U..S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%
Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18
Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in “excellent health”:
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%
Statistics from a recent article in Investors Business Daily.
Latest On Health Care Reform
In it’s current form the Health Care Legislation includes several provisions that will disadvantage or threaten HSA health plans, including:
- A new premium tax that will cause premiums to rise for individuals, families and small businesses;
- Mandated benefit levels that could eliminate HSA health plans as an option for coverage;
- A rule against using money in your HSAs to buy any over-the-counter drugs, such as allergy medications, that you now get without a prescription; and
- An increased penalty for the use of HSA dollars for non-qualified medical expenses from 10% to 20% of the reimbursement.
The window of opportunity is closing, but there is still time to contact your elected representatives in Congress and to let them know how you depend on your HSA health plan for quality coverage and to save for medical expenses.
Call, email, write or visit your Representative and Senators today. Look up their contact information here.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
House And Senate Conferees Will Have To Reconcile Two Bills
- Abortion: The House version includes stricter language designed to prohibit the use of federal funds for abortion coverage, except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. That helped appease House conservatives, but abortion was even more of a make-or-break issue in the Senate, so that chamber’s slightly milder language could win out.
- Taxes: The House and Senate bills would fund health reform in entirely different ways. The House bill would tax individuals making more than $500,000 a year and families making more than $1 million. The Senate bill would tax so-called “Cadillac” or high-cost health plans – an idea opposed by labor unions and many House Democrats. The Senate version would also impose annual fees on health insurers starting at $2 billion in 2011 and going up to $10 billion in 2017.
- Public plan: The House bill includes a government-run plan that progressives fought hard to include. Instead of a government-run plan, the Senate version would instruct the federal Office of Personnel Management to contract with private insurers to offer at least two national health plans for individuals and small businesses. One of those plans would have to be nonprofit. Conventional wisdom says the final, combined bill will not include a public plan, but House leaders could seek other tweaks in exchange for dropping the idea. Possibilities include increasing federal subsidies to help low- and middle-income people afford coverage, creating a single, national insurance exchange instead of one in each state, or introducing those exchanges earlier – in 2013, a year earlier than the Senate bill stipulates.
- Medicare Advantage:Each bill would cut funding for the Medicare Advantage program, but the amount differs substantially. The House bill includes cuts of $170 billion over ten years. The Senate bill would trim reimbursements by $118 billion over the same ten-year period. We didn’t mention the potential impact on Health Savings Accounts (HSA) because it is unclear what if anything will change with the final bill. As stated previously, two components of health care in this country that work are Medicare Advantage and Health Savings Accounts. Ironically these are two programs on the chopping block of both pieces of legislation. Very unfortunate how we have come to accept mediocrity in this Great Country.
For more, check out these side-by-side comparisons from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Two Questions For Anyone Debating Healthcare Reform
I have two questions for anyone considering the healthcare proposals currently being bantered in congress.
Q: Why have we not had one company step up and compete with Medicare in its 60+ years of existence?
A: Because it is impossible to compete with the government. The government does not need to ever earn a profit; they virtually have a never ending supply of capital (taxes). To believe the “public option” would compete with private insurance companies is simply naive.
Q: Name one government program that has been a success?
A: You cannot. Ex: Medicare and Social Security – bankrupt and heading towards a large percentage of the population ready to jump on board. Part of the reason why the government is pushing this new program is to get them out of their previous messes.
This is not a partisan issue, its common sense. Please wake up and consider this logically as opposed to emotionally. This whole debate has been like watching the herd of buffalo follow each other over the cliff.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Health Care Reform Bills Impact HSA’s
Is your HSA being impacted?
Congress will soon vote on health care reform legislation that could harm the more than 8 million Americans who have a health savings account (HSA) and restrict those who want to purchase HSA coverage in the future.
Starting this week, the House of Representatives will begin debate on the Affordable Health Care for America Act, and the Senate is expected to finish work on its version of health care reform shortly.
Both the House and Senate bills make major changes that would impact people with HSAs:
- Both bills mandate benefit levels for most health plans that could eliminate HSAs as an option.
- Both bills prohibit you from using any money in your HSAs to buy over-the-counter drugs such as allergy medications that you now get without a prescription.
- The Senate bill may place a tax on high-value health plans, so-called “Cadillac” plans, by taxing the cost of such coverage, including employer contributions to your HSA.
- Both bills raise the penalty for the use of HSA dollars for non-qualified medical expenses from 10% to 20% of the reimbursement.
It is important that you take the time to contact your members of Congress and let them know that you depend on your HSA for affordable coverage and the flexibility to set aside tax-free dollars to pay for your health care expenses.
Click here and enter zip code.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Two Steps To More Affordable Health Insurance
There’s no need to wait around on Uncle Sam-he can’t help you anyway. Only you know what’s best for you and your family.
Read entire article by Dave Ramsey.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Customer-Driven Medicine: How To Create A New Health Care System
Darrell M. West, Vice President and Director, Governance Studies
The Brookings Institution
Executive Summary
Thursday, October 08, 2009
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Washington, DC
Health care today is dominated by physicians, hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies, and government agencies. Patients seek to navigate their health care by moving across a variety of providers, ordering prescription drugs from pharmacies, and seeking reimbursement from either public or private insurance plans. They spend hours connecting the dots and working out the best health care for themselves and their families. If they are fortunate to have good providers and effective follow-through, they receive high-quality health care.
Imagine a different system where, with the aid of the Internet, electronic medical records, cell phones, and personalized health care, the patient is in charge. People monitor their own weight, blood pressure, pulse, and sugar levels, and send test results via remote devices to health care providers. Patients store their medical records online and have access regardless of where they are in the United States or around the world. They get personalized feedback via e-mail and reminders when they gain weight, have an uptick on their cholesterol levels, don’t take their medicine, or have high blood pressure. Social networking sites provide discussion forums and the benefit of collective experience from other people suffering similar problems. Patients take responsibility for their routine health care and rely on physicians and hospitals for more serious medical conditions.
This system is not a futuristic vision, but is well within our grasp. It would cut costs by reducing professional responsibility for routine tasks and record-keeping, while also making it possible for patients to receive higher quality care and be more satisfied with the end-result. The technologies for this kind of system transformation currently are available through cell phones, remote monitoring devices, video conferencing, and the Internet.
In this paper, I outline a vision for a new health care system based on mobile Health (mHealth), remote monitors, electronic medical records, social networking sites, video conferencing, and Internet-based recordkeeping. It incorporates email reminders to take medicine, a NetFlix-style mechanism to rate experiences with doctors and hospitals, and websites that make ratings publicly available to employers and other patients. Today, there are nearly as many mobile phones (600 million) in existence that can browse the Internet and access email as there are personal computers (800 million).
In order to bring this system to fruition, though, several changes are needed to encourage customer-driven health care. There have to be shifts in public policy and private health care that get the incentives right for patients, physicians, insurers, and hospitals. If we make these changes, we can cut costs while also improving quality and public satisfaction with health care.
Among the specific changes that are required include:
- changes in public and private insurance coverage that reimburse health care providers for mHealth care, remote monitoring, electronic communications with physicians, e-prescribing, and downloading medical tests to cell phones and other mobile devices;
- rewarding physicians who provide positive health outcomes for their patients, as opposed to paying them for the quantity of tests they have ordered;
- greater patient encouragement for preventive health care, good diet, and regular exercise activities and creation of a Preventive Medicine Fund that covers gym memberships, exercise equipment, flu shots, diet advice, smoking cessation programs, and substance abuse treatment;
- development of a good health rewards program similar to good driver discounts that provides benefits to patients who lead healthy lifestyles.
Related Content
Digital Health and Participatory Medicine
Darrell M. West, The Kojo Nnamdi Show, August 12, 2009
Darrell M. West, Reuters, July 10, 2009
Billionaire Doctor Puts His Money Where His Mind Is
Published: Monday, 5 Oct 2009 | 12:05 PM ET
By: Jane Wells
CNBC Correspondent
Patrick Soon-Shiong is a very smart guy who’s been told “no” all his life.
Ignoring that, he’s now worth billions. And he wants to turn healthcare on its head.
Oh really? I don’t think you can do that.
“That’s the most exciting time in life, when people tell me I can’t do that,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t know what it is about me, when you say, ‘You can’t do that,’ because then I say, ‘Well, that’s great, because then that’s exactly what I should do.’”
To achieve his goal, Dr. Soon-Shiong is spending $1 billion of a fortune he acquired building and selling drug firm APP Pharmaceuticals. With that money he is hiring the brightest minds in the world to create a smart grid for medical information. He describes it as a “Bell Labs of healthcare”, “a public utility”, and “a medical information superhighway.”
“The idea would be in my mind-and I know it sounds strange-is that the most important advances in medicine would be made not by new knowledge in molecular biology, because that’s exceeding what we can even use,” Dr. Soon-Shiong says. “It’ll be made by mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, figuring out a way to get all that information together.”
At heart, he wants to use the internet to create a way for all of your medical information to follow you portably, encrypted securely to give you control of access, which can then be combined through the right software with the most up to date medical information relevant to your situation. He points to the way the world responded to the H1N1 virus as a model of how transparency and communication can save lives. “We need to think of chronic disease, hypertension, cancer, like H1N1,” Dr. Soon-Shiong says. “In fact, there’s an epidemic of chronic disease.” Yet currently, if you go to the doctor, who then sends you to a specialist, who maybe sends you to the hospital, “that trail of the patient today is impossible to follow, even by the physicians.” He calls the myriad of proprietary systems of medical record-keeping “medical bridges to nowhere.” The system he wants to build would bring it all together, and you could access it on your iPhone. Oh yeah, he also wants the system to make costs transparent as well. So are the health insurance companies on board with his plan? “Not really.”
The other thing Dr. Soon-Shiong is pushing, which may be even more revolutionary, is to completely change the mindset about healthcare.
He says the industry is currently motivated by treating illness, not by maintaining health.
Doctors and drug companies only make money when you’re sick. There need to be incentives to keep people healthy. Certainly there are incentives for those paying insurance premiums, and some payers are proactively going down this road already. My company, GE [GE 16.26 0.43 (+2.72%) ] , is offering a new health plan starting next year which offers reduced premiums for employees who don’t smoke, as well as 100% coverage for wellness care, i.e., physicals and vaccines. Can we create enough incentives for drug companies and physicians to find profits in preventing illness?
Dr. Soon-Shiong and his wife, actress Michele Chan, recently donated $100 million to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica to help that facility become a major hub in his “Bell Labs”. He says his smart grid is already being used by several children’s hospitals, where specialists can immediately weigh in online about the best treatment for a sick child. Dr. Soon-Shiong remains chairman of Abraxis BioScience [ABII 38.18 0.94 (+2.52%) ] , which he founded, and he still plans to spin out subsidiary Abraxis Health at some point. Forbes has him as the third richest man in Los Angeles, at $4 billion (behind Eli Broad and David Geffen), but the Los Angeles Business Journal has him at #1 at $6 billion. I asked him which is right. “I have no idea,” he says with a laugh. “That’s not what I focus on.”
If you want to see how this scientist and surgeon sees a way out of what he calls a “mess”, listen here to a large portion of our interview. I keep trying to find weaknesses in Dr. Soon-Shiong’s plan, but he seems to have an answer for everything. Still, does he have enough money to make it happen? Can he convince the government-which he feels is a necessary partner to make the system work in terms of funding and regulations-sign on? Seems unlikely. But here’s a guy who ignored those who told him “no” when he became a doctor at the age of 23 in apartheid South Africa, where he had to work for half the wages of his white contemporaries. He was told “you can’t do that” when he went outside of the medical community, to places like JPL and NASA, to develop radical therapies-whether it was saving diabetics by transplanting pancreas cells encapsulated in seaweed to avoid rejection, or creating a less toxic treatment for breast cancer using nanoparticles, a technology he thinks can be used in treating melanoma and pancreatic cancer.
But change the entire way medical information is shared? Make costs transparent? Change the profit motive? Is he nuts? “I love doing a lot of things I’m told I can’t do,” he says. “I think that’s what drives me and keeps me awake every day.”
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Wall Street Journal Side By Side Comparison Of Health Care Reform Proposals
In an effort to keep you informed on the health care debate we are providing a link to a side-by-side comparison recently published by the Wall Street Journal. The comparison illustrates the major health care proposals currently being debated in Congress and by President Barack Obama.
Access the comparison by clicking here.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.