The new healthcare law will pack 32 million newly insured people into emergency rooms already crammed beyond capacity, according to experts on healthcare facilities.

A chief aim of the new healthcare law was to take the pressure off emergency rooms by mandating that people have insurance coverage. The idea was that if people have insurance, they will go to a doctor rather than putting off care until they faced an emergency.

People who build hospitals, however, say newly insured people will still go to emergency rooms for primary care because they don’t have a doctor.

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Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans – a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.

Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That’s when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for the Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.

The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.

Consider 24-year-old Nils Higdon. The self-employed percussionist and part-time teacher in Chicago pays $140 each month for health insurance. But he’s healthy and so far hasn’t needed it.

The law relies on Higdon and other young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, Higdon could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more. Depending on his income, he might also qualify for tax credits.

At issue is the insurance industry’s practice of charging more for older customers, who are the costliest to insure. The new law restricts how much insurers can raise premium costs based on age alone.

Insurers typically charge six or seven times as much to older customers as to younger ones in states with no restrictions. The new law limits the ratio to 3-1, meaning a 50-year-old could be charged only three times as much as a 20-year-old.

The rest will be shouldered by young people in the form of higher premiums.

Higdon wonders how his peers, already scrambling to start careers during a recession, will react to paying more so older people can get cheaper coverage.

“I suppose it all depends on how much more people in my situation, who are already struggling for coverage, are expected to pay,” Higdon says. He’d prefer a single-payer health care system and calls age-based premiums part of the “broken morality” of for-profit health care.

To be sure, there are benefits that balance some of the downsides for young people:

In roughly six months, many young adults up to age 26 should be eligible for coverage under their parents’ insurance – if their parents have insurance that provides dependent coverage.

Tax credits will be available for individuals making up to four times the federal poverty level, $43,320 for a single person. The credits will vary based on income and premiums costs.

Low-income singles without children will be covered for the first time by Medicaid, which some estimate will insure nine million more young adults.

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WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats prepared to meet on Wednesday to consider the fate of the Democratic health care overhaul now that Scott Brown’s decisive Senate victory in Massachusetts has cost them their razor-thin advantage.

Republicans were demanding that they scrap the bill passed by the Senate last year without a single Republican vote, and House Democrats indicated they would not quickly approve the Senate’s version without changes and send it to President Obama.

Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said the voters in Massachusetts had mirrorred the anxious mood of the nation by electing Mr. Brown, who campaigned against the Democratic measure and won the seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, its champion in the Senate.

”People across the country are saying, ’Slow it down,” Mr. Steele said Wednesday on ABC’s ”Good Morning America.” After a meeting of House Democratic leaders Tuesday night even as Mr. Brown’s victory was being declared, top lawmakers said they were weighing their options. But the prospect of passing the health care overhaul by pushing the Senate plan through the House appeared to significantly diminish.

Read more about it here.

There is a passionate debate today about health care in this country. There ought to be. There is no issue of more universal concern than the medical care of our families, and there is no sector of the American economy in greater need of reform than the health-care industry.

There is even debate about the debate itself, especially the nature of some of the most vocal opposition to reform. It is true that some detractors, including respected political figures and elected leaders, have resorted to spreading deliberate and sometimes outrageous misinformation.

While this is a disservice to the public and to democratic discourse, it does not discount the widespread – and justified – anxiety about health-care reform felt across the political and economic spectrum. I have traveled all across the state, and everywhere I’ve gone concern over health-care reform has dominated discussions.

…

Insurance market reforms and the establishment of a health insurance exchange will put in place constructive and transparent competition among insurance providers.

No longer will insurers compete to see who can deny the most care, but rather who can provide the best care at the lowest cost.

An opportunity like this to create meaningful change comes once in a generation.

Fifteen years ago, we missed our chance, and millions of Americans have suffered for it. Health-care reform is an economic imperative as well as a moral one.

We cannot abide a failure of leadership now. We owe it to our children to refuse to be shouted down, while also understanding the anxiety of Americans in this savage recession. We have the best case for caring for all Americans – now we need to take it directly to the people.

Read the rest of Rep. Sestak’s piece.

One area lawmaker says he is ready to listen and learn about President Barack Obama’s latest health care proposal that would drop a government-run insurance system in favor of not-for-profit cooperatives.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Lehigh Valley, said he has questions about the proposal, but would hear out the Obama administration on the plan.

“I don’t know what these cooperatives will look like,” Dent said Sunday.

Foremost, Dent said he wants to know how the proposed insurance cooperatives would differ from nonprofit insurers, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which are already established in the private marketplace.

During the August recess, lawmakers from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind.

Obama had wanted the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation’s almost 50 million uninsured, but didn’t include it as one of his core principles of reform.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said a government alternative to private health insurance is “not the essential element” of the administration’s health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.

Under a proposal by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives would sell insurance in competition with private industry, not unlike the way electric and agriculture co-ops operate, especially in rural states such as his own.

With $3 billion to $4 billion in initial support from the government, the co-ops would operate under a national structure with state affiliates, but independent of the government. They would be required to maintain the type of financial reserves that private companies are required to keep in case of unexpectedly high claims.

Read more at the Express-Times.

When Michele Garey felt a sharp pain in her side, she turned to the Volunteers in Medicine free medical clinic in Wilkes-Barre for help.

A doctor there recommended she undergo a colonoscopy to screen her for cancer, but without health insurance, the 46-year-old Wilkes-Barre woman doesn’t know how she will afford it.

“That could mean my life,” she said, of the importance of having the cancer screening.

She just started a new job as a certified nurse assistant and does not receive health benefits for three months. She can’t afford to purchase it on her own.

Ms. Garey joins a growing number of people being forced to forgo health insurance amid the tough economic times. About 1,021,790 Pennsylvanians, roughly 8.2 percent of the population, had no health insurance the last time a survey was conducted in 2008, according to the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. That marks an increase from a 2004 study showing nearly 900,000 Pennsylvania residents were uninsured. And, experts say the numbers have skyrocketed this year as the recession deepened.

Children and adults using and applying for state-funded health insurance programs such as Adult Basic and CHIP for children also has grown significantly in recent months. About 41,000 people statewide are enrolled in Adult Basic. From May to July this year, the waiting list for Adult Basic has risen from 3,828 to 4,519 people in Lackawanna County, 7,739 to 8,998 in Luzerne County and 235,574 to 272,242 statewide. The number of children enrolled in CHIP has grown from 2,743 to 2,766 in Lackawanna County, 4,051 to 4,112 in Luzerne County and 193,313 to 195,910 statewide.

Read more at the Times-Tribune.

Writes Tony Norman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a column titled “A nutty way of discussing health care:”

A man carrying a sign and a gun showed up outside President Obama’s town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., a few days ago. The laws of that state are clear about a citizen’s right to openly carry a gun. It was strapped to a holster on the protester’s right leg. He made no attempt to conceal it. The sign read: “It is time to water the tree of liberty.” It was not an advertisement for a local lawn care service.

William Kostric was approached by local authorities who were concerned about his proximity to the president of the United States. Given the elevated temperature of town hall meetings lately, it was a reasonable suspicion. Across the country, a minority of misinformed citizens have made a spectacle of the democratic process.

Elected officials seeking input from their constituents about various health care proposals have been verbally accosted in these town meetings as “Nazis” who have signed on to the president’s “agenda” to euthanize the sick, the handicapped and the elderly. According to the loudest and most ignorant voices at these meetings, the Obama administration’s real aim is to open the door to eugenics, socialism and forced gender reassignment for everybody

…

Mr. Obama is routinely denounced as a “tyrant” and “Adolf Hitler” by real demagogues on television and radio who claim to have discovered the outline to this conspiracy. Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are masters at feeding the racial and political anxieties of white people who feel their country was “stolen” from them the moment a slick-talking, Ivy League-educated, “affirmative action baby” with a funny, Islamic name prevailed over a genuine American war hero in a presidential election.

…

Mr. Beck, whose Fox News program has lost major commercial sponsorship because of his bizarre denunciation of the biracial president as a racist with “a deep-seated hatred for white people,” has taken to pleading with his viewers not to resort to Timothy McVeigh levels of rebellion against the government. He advised them that an Oklahoma City-style bombing now “would ruin everything.”
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today features an article on Sen. Specter’s town hall meeting yesterday in Kittanning:

By the time Sen. Arlen Specter set foot inside the Belmont Complex in East Franklin on Thursday afternoon, the crowd wanting answers was red-hot.

About 1,500 people waited for hours near Kittanning under the beating sun for the town hall meeting on health care reform. The 200 or so allowed into the hall greeted the Republican-turned-Democrat with rounds of thundering jeers reminiscent of a Jerry Springer show.

Some stood up and applauded, and so began a 90-minute showdown marked by passionate pleas for action, interruptions from angry hecklers and incessant chants that drowned out Specter’s call for civility.

…

Specter, in his fourth statewide town hall meeting and the closest to Pittsburgh, tried his best to remain calm, even when a man called him a liar and a war veteran questioned his morals.

“I’m here to listen to your concerns,” Specter said. “The whole picture is open for discussion and that’s why I’m here, to hear your views.”

…

“What’s the rush, sir?” said Trish Hamel of Mt. Lebanon, a lifelong Republican who expressed concern about Congress passing a bill before having time to examine it.

Specter kept most answers short and to the point. A cancer survivor, he said he wants every American to have health insurance and believes people should have annual examinations so they can be treated long before they develop chronic conditions.

He said he will not support a program that precludes doctors from deciding the type of care patients should have. Under the proposed plan, he said, those who have private insurance could keep it.

Taunts followed many of his comments. When he said he wouldn’t support a bill that would increase the deficit, many laughed. And when he said he wants to encourage people to stop smoking, one person yelled: “What about Obama smoking?” President Obama has said he struggles with an on-and-off smoking habit, reportedly for two decades.

…

Kevin White of Lawrenceville said he doesn’t understand why people are so angry.

“It’s really overblown,” he said. “It’s a shame that so many people are against this and they don’t want everyone to have health insurance. What do they want, for people to just keep dying?”

Read the rest of the Tribune-Review’s article.

Lawmakers eager to broaden health care coverage while holding down costs are examining the institutional market for medical supplies, a largely unseen $60 billion-a-year realm where things like bedpans and heart implants change hands.

Senators from committees like finance, judiciary and aging are investigating the practices of companies that represent big networks of hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions. These group purchasing organizations select “preferred” manufacturers and negotiate the prices of medical products, which are a closely held secret. They then use a variety of carrots and sticks to make sure their hospitals buy those brands at the contracted price.

The senators are concerned that these groups’ practices may be inflating health costs at taxpayer expense. Much of the cost is borne by the government, as it reimburses hospital expenses through the Medicare program.

On Wednesday, the senators sent letters to the seven biggest group purchasing organizations, known as G.P.O.’s, demanding detailed information about their business practices, including how they are paid, what services they perform besides picking brands and negotiating prices, and how their revenues are affected when an affiliated hospital buys supplies on its own instead of using the group contract.

The senators also asked for copies of contracts, something not normally made public.

For years, there have been complaints that the buying process is opaque and unfair. The purchasing companies’ operating expenses are usually paid by the manufacturers sitting across the bargaining table, leaving them open to accusations of steering huge blocks of institutional business to the vendors willing to pay the most.

Find out much more at the NYT.