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Stop Health Care Industry Profiteering

Putting the health care industry on the defensive by moving reforms that increase transparency, oversight, and accountability highlights health care costs and the industry's self-interested opposition to change. The US health care system underwrites some of the most profitable industries in the world; either through complicit arrangements between the industry and government, as in the new Medicare drug benefit and Florida's recently enacted limited-benefit health plan, or through government inaction, as in poor public oversight of health insurance rates. Too large a sum of our taxes and health care spending ends up in industry profits and inefficient administration, rather than actual medical care.

In response, states can (1) reduce prescription drug costs through bulk-purchasing and countering the industry's abusive marketing influence; (2) bring accountability and oversight to health insurance rates; and (3) ensure non-profit hospitals, which provide 68% of all hospitals beds in the US, provide a real "community benefit" for their tax-exempt status.

A widely held belief is that the health care industry, specifically pharmaceutical companies, puts profits ahead of people. This anger can be channeled to bring transparency and accountability to the health care industry.

Prescription Drug Cost Savings Policy Guide

From the Dispatch

Preventing Loss of Medicaid Drug Rebate Funds for States

Jul 01, 2010

While the new Affordable Health Care law provides a variety of funding opportunities for states, one provision in the health law that could shift billions of dollars from cash-strapped states to the federal government. Under the National Medicaid Drug Rebate Program created by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, drug manufacturers are required to enter into agreements that provide rebates for Medicaid purchased drugs, establishing a 15% minimum level of rebates. Up until now, the rebates were divided between the states and the federal government. But under the new health reform law, a significant portion of the rebates will go solely to Washington beginning this year.
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New Health Insurance Rules Hailed as Patient's Bill of Rights

Jun 24, 2010

Marking the 90 day anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama used the occasion to announce the implementation of a Patient’s Bill of Rights. After meeting privately with health insurance CEOs and state insurance commissioners, the White House sent a signal to insurers and to the public that the President intends to monitor how the insurance industry responds to the law’s implementation. In warning industry executives to refrain from using the law as an opportunity to boost unjustifiable rate increases, the Administration unveiled new regulations that will govern how new consumer protection provisions are implemented.
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Anticipating Federal Reform, States Move on Reining in Insurance Abuses and Implementation

Mar 18, 2010

Highlighting the outrage at insurance industry abuses pushing Congress towards a final decision on federal health care reform, state legislators continue to advance their own insurance reforms, even as they lay the groundwork for implementing the policies that will emerge in a federal bill.
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How States Fare Under Obama’s Health Reform Blueprint

Feb 25, 2010

This week, President Obama released his blueprint for comprehensive health care legislation. The plan 's release means Obama can outline the specifics of what he wants to see in a final bill for the first time. Many political observers see the decision to outline specifics as not only a jump start to move health care reform across the finish line but also as a stamp of approval for the Senate to use a majority vote through the reconciliation process, a strategy which appears to be gaining momentum.

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