How Will SCHIP Be Extended and What Will Happen to Medicare Advantage and the Upcoming Medicare Physician Fee Cuts

Health Market Survey publisher Bill Boyles joins us again today. After getting his perspective on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) debate yesterday, I prevailed upon him to put a post together for our readers.Bill has some very important news on just how this debate, which involves three greatly important health care issues--the SCHIP extension, proposed Medicare Advantage

Health Wonk Review is UP

This time Brian Klepper over at "The Doctor Weighs In" has an assortment of provocative posts on a wide range of health care policy and marketplace issues.Check it out.

Romney Wants to Reform State Health Insurance Regulation--Just What Does He Mean by That?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is calling for the cutting of state health insurance regulations to make policies more affordable. He blames the over-regulation of health insurance at the state level as one of the primary reasons health insurance costs so much.Of course the reason that health insurance costs so much is that health care costs so much, but we’ve discussed that one

it figures

Blue skies,
cool days,
fresh start,
pink eyes.

Both eyes.

Back-to-school means being exposed to a whole host of communicable diseases.

No one else in my family has it. Yet.

They have stronger immune systems than I do but if the kids get it, I have to keep them home from school. For days.

And put drops in their eyes while they scream.

Before I had kids I had never once had conjunctivitis. I have now had it five times.

At least the weather is nice and pink eye won't keep me in bed.

But if you've got something else contagious, love me from afar. OK?

Mitt Romney's Health Plan--A Foot in Each Canoe

Up in Wisconsin's Northwoods, camp counselors play a game with the kids in which they put two canoes together in the lake and have the kids try to stand up with one foot in each canoe. As you can imagine it's an almost impossible balancing act.I was reminded of that last week sitting by our lake reading reports of Mitt Romney’s health plan proposals.Romney has two canoes to deal with:He signed,

"Don't Pit Children Against Seniors"--The AHIP Takes the Medicare Advantage Debate to Another Low

When the health insurance industry trade association, AHIP, tried to employ the NAACP in their battle to protect Medicare Advantage (MA) payments last May by arguing higher payments to the industry are good for poor people, I asked, could they have sunk any lower?From the looks of a letter to the editor in Sunday’s Washington Post, the answer is yes.The title of AHIP CEO Karen Ignagni’s letter is

uneven terrain

Sometimes, my heart is so full of joy that I feel it might burst out of my chest.

Sometimes, my heart is so heavy with sadness for all that I've lost that I can barely move.

And sometimes, I feel both ways. At the same time.