“Senior Death Warrant” is the title of a ridiculous chain email created to frighten the public as the Obama administration attempts to overhaul health care for first time in decades. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to laugh off this message, especially as it keeps appearing in forums and on other websites.

Here’s how it begins:

The actress Natasha Richardson died after falling skiing in Canada. It took eight hours to drive her to a hospital. If Canada had our healthcare she might be alive today. We now have helicopters that would have gotten her to the hospital in 30 minutes. Obama wants to have our healthcare like Canada ‘s and England’s.

In England anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed.

I got this today and am sending it on. If Obama’s plans in other areas don’t scare you, this should. [...]

Please do not let Obama sign senior death warrants.

Everybody that is on this mailing list is either a senior citizen, is getting close or knows somebody that is.

Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the “stimulus” bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens… The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with the following statement. Bloomberg: Daschle says “health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”

There’s more, and you can read it in its entirety at FactCheck.org, along with a point-by-point breakdown of all the incorrect information contained within.

For starters, here’s what FactCheck.org found when it looked into the claim about people over age 59 not receiving coronary care in England:

We called the United Kingdom’s Department of Health and a spokesman told us: “It is not true that anyone aged over 59 years cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass surgery on the basis of their age.”

He also said that medical procedures in the U.K. are not routinely denied for older people. The National Health Service, the U.K.’s public health care service, has a constitution which prohibits discrimination on the basis of age and other factors. “The NHS Constitution states that the NHS provides a ‘comprehensive service, available to all irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief,’ ” the spokesman said.

We also contacted a nonprofit group, England’s Age Concern and Help the Aged, which works to stop age discrimination in various facets of life, including employment and health care. Age Concern’s press office had never heard of any kind of prohibition on heart surgery for those 60 and older.

Women, who generally live five to 10 years longer than men, need to know that health care reform in the United States will not lead to a rationing of care for seniors. Here’s what FactCheck.org reports on the stimulus bill:

Some conservatives have said that a council overseeing the government’s funding of comparative effectiveness research (research into which medicines and procedures work best and are most cost-effective) will “ration” health care. But the council created by the stimulus legislation (now public law (pdf)) doesn’t have any power to do that. In fact, the legislation stipulates that “[n]one of the reports submitted under this section or recommendations made by the Council shall be construed as mandates or clinical guidelines for payment, coverage, or treatment.”

As for former Sen. Tom Daschle, he never said, “Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.” Here’s the real deal:

Instead, those are the words of the former Republican lieutenant governor of New York, Betsy McCaughey, who wrote an opinion piece for Bloomberg News and offered her reading of comments in Daschle’s book. Back in February, we dissected McCaughey’s column, pieces of which have popped up in chain e-mails, and found it to be full of errors. McCaughey also passes off opinion as fact, and in the case of Daschle, she paraphrases him, which is clear from the lack of quote marks in the column.

What Daschle did say is a far cry from “seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.” Instead, he wrote (without mentioning age) in his book “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis”: “The use and overuse of new technologies and treatments is grounded in American culture. … More so than people in other countries, [Americans] just aren’t inclined to fatalistically accept a hopeless diagnosis or forgo experimental interventions if there is even the slightest chance of success.”

If you see the “senior death warrant” email posted anywhere, please respond by posting this link:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_it_true_that_persons_older_than.html

Plus: National Women’s Law Center is calling for a national call-in day on health reform on Tuesday, July 28 (that’s tomorrow). Call your U.S. representatives to tell them to support the House’s health care reform bill (H.R. 3200).

As if Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing wasn’t enough news for one day, President Obama on Monday announced the nomination of Dr. Regina Benjamin — a family doctor who runs a rural clinic in Alabama where close to half of the patients are uninsured — for surgeon general.

It seems like an inspired choice. Here’s some background, from the Chicago Tribune:

Benjamin in 1995 became the first black woman and the youngest doctor elected to serve on the board of the American Medical Assn. In 2008 she received a MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant supporting her efforts to treat her patients in the Gulf Coast region regardless of their ability to pay.

Benjamin received her medical education through the National Health Service Corps, a federal program that covers medical students’ tuition in exchange for work in underserved areas.

In 1990 she founded a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala., a Gulf Coast village of about 2,500, many of whom lack health insurance. About a third of the community’s residents are immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Since founding the clinic, Benjamin has worked to rebuild it three times: in 1998 after it was devastated by Hurricanes Georges; in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina; and more recently after it was destroyed by a fire.

Benjamin is a graduate of Xavier University, Morehouse School of Medicine and the University of Alabama School of Medicine. She obtained her MBA at Tulane University. Her clinic bio states she is a board member of Physicians for Human Rights; her tenure there was from 1996 to 2002.

A committed advocate of prevention programs, Benjamin knows the challenges involved in providing quality, primary care to underinsured and uninsured patients. When she began working on the Gulf Coast of Alabama after medical school, it was to fulfill her obligation to the National Health Service Corps. In an interview several years ago with Tulane magazine, Benjamin said she likely would have ended up in a rural area even if she wasn’t obligated.

“I just like this type of medicine,” she said. “I’ve always had this strong social conscience and sense of social responsibility.”

During the announcement ceremony, Benjamin said:

I am honored, and I am humbled, to be nominated to serve as United States surgeon general. This is a physician’s dream.

But for me it’s more than just a job. Public health issues are very personal to me. My father died with diabetes and hypertension. My older brother and only sibling died at age 44 of HIV-related illness. My mother died of lung cancer because as a young girl she wanted to smoke, just like her twin brother could.

My Uncle Buddy, my mother’s twin, who’s one of the few surviving black World War II prisoners of war, is at home right now on oxygen, struggling for each breath, because of the years of smoking.

My family’s not here with me today — at least not in person — because of preventable diseases. While I can’t — or I cannot change my family’s past, I can be a voice in the movement to improve our nation’s health care and our nation’s health for the future.

Writing at the Wall Street Journal, Jacob Goldstein looks for the symbolism in Obama’s choice and connects Benjamin’s work to U.S. healthcare discussions underway.

“Of course, there is a danger in looking too hard for symbolism and reading too much into Benjamin’s resume,” writes Goldstein. “Sanjay Gupta was offered the job earlier this year and turned it down. The symbolism of a surgeon general who was a neurosurgeon who got famous by going on CNN would, obviously, have been rather different than the symbols of Benjamin’s story.”

Plus: When The New York Times announced the selection Monday morning, it didn’t take long for commenters to focus on Benjamin’s weight, with some even charging that she is obese and thus unfit for this public role. Grrr.

A continuation of the latest in health reform politics and discussions …

Speaking of reducing bureaucratic interference, Lois Uttley of Merger Watch wrote the definitive get-your-act-together letter to Congress warning against drafting healthcare legislation that shortchanges women.

Referring to numerous Senate amendments, such as no funding for abortion, that “would deny health care to women, gays and lesbians, people with HIV and anybody else conservatives don’t like,” Uttley offers the following advice:

Apparently, you conservative Republicans have forgotten the advice GOP consultant Frank Luntz gave you just two months ago about how to talk about health reform: “What Americans are looking for in health reform is more access to treatments and more doctors … with less interference from insurance companies and Washington politicians and special interests.” That means we don’t want any more interference in our health care from you, or any of the right-wing groups urging you to use health reform to restore the rejected Bush “moral values” agenda.

There’s enough blame to go around. Indeed, Uttley lashes out with a masterful bipartisan critique:

Now, let’s turn to you Democrats who are supposedly running Congress. You are spending far too much time trying to win over colleagues who are never going to vote for health reform, no matter if you offer them abortion exclusions or new provider “conscience” laws or other provisions that would hobble health reform. You need to get over your worries that if you support inclusion of a strong public plan in health reform, somebody is going to call you a socialist.

Don’t forget that women are among the strongest supporters of moving quickly on health reform this year. Why? Women are grassroots experts on what is broken in the current health system.

Insurance plans try to squirm out of covering us when we are having babies by declaring our pregnancies to be “pre-existing conditions.” In a lot of states, insurance companies charge us more than men for health coverage, largely because of the costs of having children. They call this “gender rating.” We call it discrimination.

Read on for more about what makes us (frustrated) experts.

As the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee marked up the long-term care part of a health care change bill Tuesday, Health and Humans Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to committee Chairman Ted Kennedy with an endorsement. She signaled the Obama administration’s support for something called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS Act).

That legislation, which is part of the committee’s health bill, would let workers choose to have government deduct money from their paychecks — maybe $65 to $100 a month — and put it in a savings account. When they get old or disabled and need care, they could then use that money.

There’s opposition from Republicans, but they’re not the only ones voicing concerns:

Bob Kafka, of the disability civil rights group ADAPT, said not enough is done for poor people who can’t afford to have the money deducted from their weekly paychecks — or who, because of their illness or disability, may not be able to work at all. “Secretary Sebelius’ letter adds insult to injury,” said Kafka. “This administration has totally said to low income people with disabilities, ‘You do not count.’ ”

Kafka’s group endorsed the CLASS Act but wants it paired with passage of another bill called the Community Choice Act. That would allow people who get long-term care services through Medicaid to use that money for help to stay at home. Now, the only thing they are guaranteed is that Medicaid will pay for them to live in a nursing home — and home services are limited, require being on yearlong waiting lists, or are unavailable.

Want to Reduce Healthcare Costs? Support Midwives: Writing at The American Prospect, Miriam Perez reports on advocacy efforts to get all states to recognize and license certified professional midwives. Unlike certified nurse midwives, who are allowed to practice in all 50 states and generally work in hospital settings alongside obstetricians, CPMs practice outside of hospitals, mostly in homes or birth centers. How is this related to health care reform? Perez explains:

Childbirth is among the top five causes for hospitalization, and the No. 1 cause for women. According to Childbirth Connection, Cesarean section is the most common operating-room procedure, and in 2009 the C-section rate hit an all-time high according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at 31.8 percent of all births. These rates account, in part, for the increasing cost of maternity care in the U.S. Maternal and newborn charges totaled $86 billion in 2006, 45 percent of which was paid for by Medicaid. The federal government is already footing a huge portion of the U.S.’ maternity-care bill, and these midwives think they can help reduce costs significantly, and not just for low-income women. [...]

David Anderson, economics professor at Centre College in Kentucky, has run the numbers and says that midwifery care could save us billions of dollars annually, without affecting quality of care (maybe even improving it). Anderson posits that if we increase the percentage of women giving birth out of hospital by 10 percent (currently at only 1 percent nationally) we could save close to $9 billion per year. He points to the difference in baseline costs for out-of-hospital birth — a difference of more than $6,000 when comparing the average cost of a home birth to an in-hospital one. Another main cost reducer, according to Anderson, is the significantly lower rate of C-sections for out-of-hospital births.

It’s not just the costs that are lower, according to these advocates. The outcomes are better too, which in turn, further lowers cost by reducing additional care needed by sick babies and mothers. Anderson adds that if CPMs are allowed to practice in all 50 states, competition will drive down prices for maternity care, since more women will have access to a low-cost alternative to hospital births.

Visit The Big Push for Midwives for more information.

How To Fund Health Care Reform: House Democrats are expected to add details today to a proposed healthcare bill. The bill will include a tax increase on wealthy couples.  House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) predicted the plan could generate as much as $540 billion over 10 years. From the Chicago Tribune:

Married taxpayers earning more than $350,000 a year in adjusted gross income and single filers making more than $280,000 a year would pay a surtax of at least 1%. Rates would rise on higher incomes, with families earning more than $1 million paying about 3%.

The tax plan faces an uncertain fate in the House and the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans are working on their own proposals to offset the costs of helping tens of millions of people get health insurance. Senate leaders have shown much less interest in a new income tax. President Obama, meanwhile, has proposed raising more than $300 billion over 10 years by limiting the deductions that wealthy Americans take on their income taxes.

News Analysis: Another site to add to your healthcare reform reading list — The New England Journal of Medicine has a useful section featuring the latest news and articles on costs and coverage.

This Week’s Super Fun Health Reform Graphic: The Kaiser Family Foundation’s side-by-side comparison of healthcare reform proposals now includes details about the House Tri-Committee proposal (discussed here last week). Check it –

We also direct your attention to the Center for Policy Analysis, a resource for information on progressive health reform. The real treasure is its EQUAL Health listserv (Equitable, Quality, Universal, Affordable Health). Sign up and take part in conversations about women’s health, national health reform and how to advocate for policies that would benefit us all.

The Center also provides guidance on reaching out to members of Congress: This chart shows which caucus committee members belong to — which is a good indication of which plan they’re supporting. Use it to contact your representative, because times are tough …

Perilous Roadblocks: “Four divisive issues could dash President Barack Obama’s hopes of overhauling health care: cost, creating a government-run plan, taxing workers’ benefits and penalizing employers that don’t offer coverage,” writes the AP’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar. “Even if lawmakers come back from their July Fourth recess charged up to tackle health care, these issues are going to keep simmering for months. A big blowup over any single one could threaten the entire legislation.”

We Got Nothing: Republicans are doing their part to wage fear over a government-supported health insurance program (the public option), while also acknowledging that none of the existing Democratic plans will gather bipartisan support.

“Asked how many Senate Republicans could sign on to developing Democratic plans, Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, author of a Republican alternative, said: ‘I think right now, none. Zero,’” reports The New York Times, which later on notes, “Republicans, however, have yet to put forward their own concrete plans that would broadly expand health coverage while also holding down costs.”

Over at Talking Points Memo, Zachary Roth points out that arguments against the public option on the grounds that it will destroy free-market competition miss the mark:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), speaking earlier this month on Fox News, called President Obama’s plan the “first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known.” A public option, Shelby added, would “destroy the marketplace for health care.”

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. And a study issued last month by a pro-reform group makes that strikingly clear.

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country’s insurance markets are defined as “highly concentrated,” according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that’s led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers.

The full HCAN report and executive summary are available here.

Marking Progress (or Lack Thereof): Obama adviser David Axelrod isn’t ruling out the possibility of a tax on health insurance benefits:

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” David Axelrod declined to repeat Obama’s “firm pledge” during the campaign that families making under $250,000 would not see “any form of tax increase, not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

Instead, Axelrod said the president has no interest in “drawing lines in the sand” on the issue of how to pay for the costly health reform plan making its way through Congress.

Nor is he holding all that tight to the public option. Again with the sand, this time on NBC’s “Meet the Press”:

Axelrod said he is “confident that we’re going to get a health care reform bill”: “I think a public choice will be part of it. I think the public wants to have that option, and wants to see that kind of competition, and I think we will have that.”

Moderator David Gregory followed up: “When it comes to a public plan, though, no ultimatums from the president?”

“Well, the president believes strongly in a public choice, and he has made that very, very clear,” Axelrod replied. “He has made that clear privately. He has made that clear publicly, and we’re going to continue to do so. … Look, we have gotten a long way down the road by not drawing bright lines in the sand — other than on the major points, which is that we can’t add to the deficit with this health care reform, so it has to be paid for, it has to reduce costs, and we want to make sure that all Americans have quality, affordable health care.

Single-Payer Advocates Not Only Ones Feeling Left Out: Emily Pierce at Roll Call writes:

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah) have 11 other co-sponsors already — six Democrats, one Independent and four Republicans — on their bill, which is aimed at creating more competition in the insurance market and lowering costs by eliminating employer-provided health care coverage. Instead, consumers would get pay raises equal to their current health benefits and buy insurance on the open market.

Bennett said he believes the bill has lacked traction with Senate leaders because neither he nor Wyden is in a position to place it at the center of the debate.

“Hell has no fury like a committee chairman whose jurisdiction has been challenged. And neither Sen. Wyden nor I is a committee chairman,” Bennett said. “I think that’s part of it.”

Insured but Unprotected: Just a reminder of how poorly our current system protects those with insurance: The New York Times reports that “an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured,” and patient advocates are calling for federal rules “to correct the current state-by-state regulatory patchwork that allows some insurance companies to sell relatively worthless policies.”

“Underinsurance is the great hidden risk of the American health care system,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who has analyzed medical bankruptcies. “People do not realize they are one diagnosis away from financial collapse.”

Plus: Elizabeth Warren earlier this year appeared on PBS’s NOW with Maria Hinojosa. Read or listen to the interview.

Health Reform That Benefits Women: From Women’s eNews: As Congress debates at least 10 health care proposals, prominent women’s advocates say work and wage issues make the single-payer model the best deal for women — but it’s not picking up much legislative support . Molly M. Ginty talked to a number of women’s health advocates, including our own Judy Norsigian. OBOS has formally endorsed the single-payer model. Amnesty International also urged action on single-payer this week.

Though single-payer legislation is not being considered in the Senate, the House is weighing it in the form of the U.S. National Health Care Act (HR 676), which was introduced January 26 by Michigan Rep. John Conyers, Jr.

Prominent advocates for women’s health say the lagging single-payer model would serve women best. The National Women’s Health Network, for instance, has endorsed this model since 1978.

“Most of the leading health care proposals on the table would tie insurance coverage to employment in a way that is problematic for women,” said Judy Norsigian, executive director of the Boston-based Our Bodies, Ourselves.

The story notes that California Rep. Barbara Lee plans to reintroduce another single-payer plan — the U.S. Universal Health Service Act (HR 3000). It was in fact reintroduced last week.

Single-Payer Testimony: Single-payer advocates Quentin Young and Steffie Woolhandler, both with Physicians for a National Health Program, last week testified before the House Ways and Means and the Energy and Commerce committees, respectively.

Dr. Young’s testimony reads in part:

I wish to make two points to the Members of this Committee. The first is that the best health policy science, literature, and experience indicate that the Tri-Committee proposal will fail miserably in its purported goal of providing comprehensive, sustainable health coverage to all Americans. And it will fail whether or not it includes a so-called “public option” health plan.

The second point I wish to make is that single-payer national health insurance is not just the only path to universal coverage, it is the most politically feasible path to health care for all, because it pays for itself, requiring no new sources of revenue.

Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive who had a change of heart, also testified. Potter is now senior fellow on health care for the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison.

Take Action
National Women’s Law Center: Join NWLC on July 6 for a national health care reform call-in day, and tell your members of Congress that health care reform can’t wait. More info.

Are you on Twitter? NWLC is running a Twitter stream on healthcare reform. Finish the sentence, “Women need health care reform this year because … ” and add the hashtag #healthcare09 to your tweet.

Stay tuned for Political Diagnosis II, the rest of the week in Washington …

Maternal mortality and morbidity is a large problem worldwide, and one we’ve written about here in various contexts in the past. According to the World Health Organization, 1,500 women die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications every day, mostly in developing countries, and most of these deaths are avoidable.

In an attempt to focus international attention on this problem, The United Nations Human Rights Council included in its recent session a resolution on maternal mortality and morbidity.  According to the agency’s press release the resolution calls for the following:

• a study on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity, including identification of human rights aspect
• an overview of initiatives and activities within the United Nations system to address all causes of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity
• identification of how the Human Rights Council can add to existing efforts by providing human rights analysis, including efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal on improving maternal health
• recommended options for better addressing the human rights dimension of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity throughout the United Nations system.

In a joint release responding to the resolution, the Center for Reproductive Rights notes that “This is a groundbreaking step towards ensuring every woman’s basic human right to a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth. Governments should heed the call of the Human Rights Council and take urgent action to prevent women from dying needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth.”

A representative of Action Canada for Population and Development quoted for the release described the importance of the resolution thusly: “By supporting this resolution, governments have affirmed the right of women and girls to receive care before, during, and after pregnancy and childbirth, and to survive these experiences without illness or disability.”

This Week’s Super Fun Health Reform Graphic: The award goes to The New York Times for the multi-tab Key Challenges in the Healthcare Debate. Below is the view from the section on “Getting Through Congress.”

Cuts to Medicare Drug Costs: The AARP has endorsed an offer by drug manufacturers to discount the price of some Medicare prescriptions by $80 billion over the next decade. The announcement was made today at the White House; a transcript of President Obama’s remarks is available here.

“The unusual offer by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is part of its effort to convince skeptical lawmakers that it backs major health-care legislation,” writes Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post. “Though the agreement represents a fraction of the total cost of health-care reform, it has been managed for maximum public relations exposure.”

Connolly explains how the deal would work:

When the Medicare prescription drug benefit approved by Congress went into effect in 2006, it left a coverage gap that charges seniors the full cost of medications once a patient has received $2,700 worth of drugs, until the total reaches about $6,100. At that point, “catastrophic” coverage kicks in and covers nearly all drug expenses.

“The existence of this gap in coverage has been a continuing injustice that has placed a great burden on many seniors,” Obama said over the weekend.

Under the proposal, seniors who fall into the coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole,” would pay half price for all brand-name medicines. The discounts could save 3.5 million retirees up to $1,700 a year, according to AARP. In addition, the full price of the drug would count toward a person’s out-of-pocket total, thus maximizing the insurance benefit.

Connolly also wrote a good Sunday Outlook piece on Obama’s strategic approach to health reform, and this morning she participated in an online discussion about the article.

Study Time: It’s a busy week for Congress, as three House committees — Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor — take up health-reform legislation. Here’s the draft bill released Friday by House Democrats.

Kaiser Health News’ Mary Agnes Carey discusses the highlights of the bill, which includes an individual mandate for coverage, with some exclusions, and an employer mandate – called “pay or play.” As for how it will be paid for:

They stressed that everything is on the table. They have some ideas. They want major Medicare and Medicaid system reform such as ‘accountable care’ organizations that really try to coordinate medical care to make sure it’s the best possible care for the patient and reducing hospital re-admissions.

But of course, they’re always talking about taxes as well. And these are some of the ideas that will be discussed in the coming weeks: a tax on the benefits that an employer provides, a payroll tax, a tax on sugary drinks, taxes on alcohol, value added taxes (also called VAT) on some goods and services.

Igor Volsky at The Wonk Room notes that the Tri-Committee proposal “seems to contain a fairly robust public insurance option.” The Times published a poll Sunday showing overwhelming support for a government-funded public option that would compete with private insurance plans.

“On the whole,” adds Volsky, “the bill’s affordability measures are impressive.” His post includes a comparison of the HELP bill, the Senate Finance Committee draft and the Tri-Committee bill.

Raising Women’s Voices notes that the new House bill includes a statement on meeting women’s health care needs. Two points in particular stand out:

• Include coverage of maternity services as a benefit category in the new basic benefit package. All plans in the Exchange would be required to maternity services and over time plans outside the Exchange would be required to do so as well.
• Prohibit plans in the Exchange from charging women more than men by banning gender rating. This protection will extend to all health plans outside the Exchange over time as well.

Pus: The Senate debate kicked off Wednesday, and it was a rocky start. Jeffrey Young at The Hill has more.

Here are six senators to watch for their involvement in crafting a bipartisan health-care bill, via The Fix. Three former Senate majority leaders — Democrat Tom Daschle, and Republicans Bob Dole and Howard Baker — have reemerged with their own plan. They must be missing the excitement.

Dan Balz writes that Obama is soon going to have to “make clear what he’ll accept and what he won’t” when it comes to “cost and coverage, revenue and savings, a public option or not, and the cost vs. the desirability of bipartisan agreement.”

Cost and coverage suddenly became a more central issue after the Congressional Budget Office issued new estimates last week. The goal of reform advocates long has been a plan that moves the country to universal coverage. Earlier assumptions put the price tag in the neighborhood of $1 trillion over 10 years. The CBO shattered those assumptions, though their numbers were based on incomplete plans.

A preliminary estimate of the Senate Finance Committee’s draft bill put the price tag of universal coverage at $1.6 trillion over 10 years. That was considerably more than anyone anticipated and forced the committee to delay work on the bill. The cost of the incomplete plan drafted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was pegged at about $1 trillion over 10 years, but the CBO said that would still leave 30 million (rather than the current 46 million) people without coverage.

Talking Points: Media Matters notes that during a Sunday morning interview with members of the Obama administration’s health care team, Good Morning America’s Diane Sawyer didn’t include any questions that reflected the concerns or positions of progressives.

Meanwhile, single-payer advocates continue to make news. The Boston Globe has a Q&A with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a Cambridge Health Alliance internist and Harvard Medical School professor who co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program. And MinnPost.com interviews PNHP’s president, Dr. Oliver Fein, who notes how popular single payer has become, despite its unpopularity:

What I think is really interesting is that although Sen. [Max] Baucus says that single payer is off the table, at the minimum, we’re the elephant under the table. Everybody is referring to us.

So, you have someone like [Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen] Sebelius now saying we’ll create a public option that will not go to single payer. You have Republicans saying that the thing they fear is single payer; you have a whole variety of discussion that’s going on that keeps referring to this thing called single payer. Probably one of the real problems is there’s not enough of a definition for the public to make an assessment about what that really is.

Plus: Here’s Sebelius’s no-single-payer interview with NPR.

In other political news …

So About That All-Important Sounding Council …: Linda Lowen, About.com Guide to Women’s Issues, is waiting to hear what the White House Council on Women and Girls is doing. And she doesn’t like waiting. Via Feminist Peace Network (she doesn’t like waiting, either).

Did You Hear the One About the Republican Senator Who Wouldn’t Condemn Clinic Violence?: Sadly, it’s true. Jodi Jacobson reports at RH Reality Check that an anonymous Republican senator used his (it’s presumed, with good reason, that the Republican in question is male) power “to put a ‘hold’ on a Senate Resolution originally introduced by U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) condemning violence against women’s health providers, thereby blocking any vote on the resolution.”

Bush Bioethics Panel No More: The New York Times reports: “Members of the President’s Council on Bioethics were told by the White House last week that their services were no longer needed and were asked to cancel a planned meeting, a council staff member said Wednesday.”

Reid Cherlin, a White House press officer, told the NYT the panel was designed to a “a philosophically leaning advisory group” that was more about discussion than consensus-building.  that favored discussion over developing a shared consensus. Obama will appoint a new panel charged with offering “practical policy options,” said Cherlin.

The FDA’s Full Plate: FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told USA TOday there’s no truth to the rumors that the FDA will split in two, with one half overseeing food safety and tobacco and the other responsible for oversight of medical products.

Drug safety, tobacco regulation and direct-to-consumer advertising top Hamburg’s agenda. On the subject of advertising, Hamburg said, “There certainly have been concerns about the quality and authenticity of some of the messages … We have a dedicated staff working on the issue.”

Kaiser Family Foundation has released an important package of resources that shines a spotlight on health disparities between white women and women of color in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.,

The report (pdf), “Putting Women’s Health Care Disparities On The Map: Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities at the State Level,” takes into account 25 indicators, including rates of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, AIDS and cancer, and access to health insurance and health screenings.

The states with the largest rate of disparities were Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and South Dakota. States such as Virginia, Maryland, Georgia and Hawaii showed relatively smaller disparities between women of color and white women on health outcomes and health care access.

The reports also notes that white women and minority women were doing similarly well in Maine — and similarly poorly in Kentucky and West Virginia.

This introductory page includes links to the full report and numerous documents that look closely at health status, access to health care, social determinants and workforce statistics.

Among the key findings:

Disparities existed in every state on most measures. Women of color fared worse than White women across a broad range of measures in almost every state, and in some states these disparities were quite stark. Some of the largest disparities were in the rates of new AIDS cases, late or no prenatal care, no insurance coverage, and lack of a high school diploma.

In states where disparities appeared to be smaller, this difference was often due to the fact that both White women and women of color were doing poorly. It is important to also recognize that in many states (e.g. West Virginia and Kentucky) all women, including White women, faced significant challenges and may need assistance.

Few states had consistently high or low disparities across all three dimensions. Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and Hawaii all scored better than average on all three dimensions. At the other end of the spectrum, Montana, South Dakota, Indiana, and several states in the South Central region of the country (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) were far below average on all dimensions.

States with small disparities in access to care were not necessarily the same states with small disparities in health status or social determinants. While access to care and social factors are critical components of health status, our report indicates that they are not the only critical components. For example, in the District of Columbia disparities in access to care were better than average, but the District had the highest disparity scores for many indicators of health and social determinants.

Each racial and ethnic group faced its own particular set of health and health care challenges.
The enormous health and socioeconomic challenges that many American Indian and Alaska Native women faced was striking. American Indian and Alaska Native women had higher rates of health and access challenges than women in other racial and ethnic groups on several indicators, often twice as high as White women. Even on indicators that had relatively low levels of disparity for all groups, such as number of days that women reported their health was “not good,” the rate was markedly higher among American Indian and Alaska Native women.

Plus: Kaiser also put together a video companion to the report. Filmed at the Arlington (Va.) Free Clinic, the video looks at the challenges that uninsured women face.

President Obama spoke to delegates at the American Medical Association meeting in Chicago today (transcript), reassuring them the country is not moving toward a single-payer healthcare plan.

It’s too bad, because Our Bodies Ourselves today published a detailed position paper explaining why the single-payer model is the most cost-effective and smartest approach to solving the United States’ health and medical care crisis — and why it’s the best plan for women.

Grab this press release, designed to be tweeted and shared with your networks, and help spread the word.

Judy Norsigian, OBOS executive director, and Jennifer Potter, MD, director of the Women’s Health Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and director of women’s health at Fenway Health, co-authored an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe that summarizes some of the key arguments and outlines what women stand to gain.

“The only national plan for healthcare reform that explicitly includes women’s reproductive health services, including abortion, is one sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat,” they wrote. “Other sponsors of single-payer plans are also amenable to including women’s reproductive health services.”

Lee is expected to re-introduce H.R. 3000, the United States Universal Health Service Act, this legislative session.

More than 10 benefits for women are discussed in detail in the position paper. Among them:

* Coverage is independent from employment.

* Coverage is independent from marriage.

* Single-payer system would encourage better care for chronic illnesses.

* Single-payer system would eliminate the need for Medicaid.

* Single-payer system would address the cost issues that send women into debt and bankruptcy.

The position paper also covers why the so-called public option — a government-sponsored insurance plan that would compete with private insurance coverage — is not enough to drastically improve coverage and access. And it provides additional articles and resources to support its arguments.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

Confused About Health Care Reform? Start Here: Check out the Kaiser Family Foundation resources explaining the basics of health care reform. It’s worth pointing to each week, especially since it’s continually updated.

Arguments for Single Payer Make the Record: Single-payer advocates finally got a hearing last week before the House Education and Labor Committee’s subcommittee on health, employment, labor and pensions. C-SPAN has the video.  Dana Milbank brings the snark.

Obama Meets the AMA: President Obama today will address delegates at the American Medical Association meeting in Chicago. It’s the first time since 1983 that a president addressed an AMA delegates meeting, and it’s bound to get interesting.

The AMA came out against a government-sponsored insurace plan designed to compete against private insurance companies (also known as the “public option”); the group later softened its opposition. AMA President Dr. Nancy Nielsen on Saturday said that AMA’s priorities are increased payments from Medicare and medical liability reform.

Obama suports the public insurance plan. And this weekend he outlined “$313 billion in proposed cuts over the next decade to the Medicare insurance program for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor to help cover the cost of expanding insurance coverage.”

But he is open to reining in medical suits.

AMA is the largest physician lobby, representing 180 medical societies, but it has lost clout over the years. Medical school students account for its largest member groups, and less than 20 percent of all practicing physicians are members of the AMA. Over at ThinkProgress, Lee Fang explains a bit about the AMA’s ties to the health industry:

Started in the mid 19th century as an accrediting organization, the AMA has morphed into a behemoth lobbying and member services entity that is deeply entwined with the for-profit health industry.

In the past century, the growth of AMA has been not only funded by health industry lobbies such as drug makers, but this relationship has tailored AMA’s anti-reform policy agenda. In reading the Huffington Post and the New America Foundation articles revealing AMA’s opposition to health reform during the New Deal, its efforts to block the passage of Medicare, and the AMA’s critical role in defeating health reform in 1993, questions arise over why the AMA has historically opposed any initiative to take health care out of the hands of the for-profit health industry.

Read on.

Senate Members Look for More Options: “As President Obama traveled to the heartland to sell a government-run insurance plan as essential to health-care reform, Senate negotiators began to explore a possible bipartisan compromise modeled after rural cooperatives,” reports the Washington Post.

That model was presented by Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota who has introduced, as a “potential compromise” on the public plan, a system of federally-chartered co-ops that could offer a non-profit alternative to for-profit insurance companies. Ezra Klein has a Q&A with Conrad.

Minority Groups Joins Forces on Health Care: Members of the Congressional TriCaucus — comprised of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus — last week introduced The Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2009. The groups are working together to ensure that the health needs of minorities are taken into account in any health reform plan and that the elimination of racial and ethnic disparities becomes a priority.

“Today over 47 million people lack health insurance in America and although racial and ethnic minorities account for about one third of U.S. population, they account for more than half of the uninsured,” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee (CA-09) said in a statement.

These are the reform elements the TriCaucus has identified as priorities:
·    A public health insurance option that is universal and includes mental and dental health services.
·    Elevating the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health and strengthening the Office of Minority Health within the Department of Health and Human Services.
·    Addressing cultural and linguistic concerns such as credentialing for medical translators and ensuring adequate reimbursement for language and translation services.
·    Healthcare provisions regarding clinical trials must also — whenever possible — include racial and ethnic diversity to find out effects on a broad range of groups.

“Access to culturally competent quality health care should be one of the most basic of all entitlements,” said Rep. Danny K. Davis (IL-07), who serves as co-chair of the CBC Health and Wellness Taskforce. “Expansion of community, migrant, family and rural health centers will help make this concept a reality.”

Plus: “Public health officials have long recognized — and tried to eliminate — the sharp disparities in health among racial and ethnic minorities. But there is another group as well that ranks well below average on many measures of health: people with disabilities,” reads this Boston Globe editorial in favor of state legislation that addresses health disparities faced by people with disabilities, as well as other minorities.

Solutions for Healthcare Reform: The Chicago Tribune recently published a package of stories featuring reform suggestions from industry leaders, including pharmacists, insurers and doctors in smaller practices.

Plus: It appears a solution for the cost of reform is even trickier.

Healthy Families Act Gets Hearing: Five years after it was first introduced, the House last week held its first-ever hearing on the Healthy Families Act. The bill would enable workers at companies with more than 15 employees to take up to seven paid sick days per year to care for themselves or a sick family member.

The AFL-CIO blog reports on the hearing and points to a new study (pdf) from the Center for Economic and Policy Research that found mandatory paid sick days do not lead to higher unemployment.

Plus: Did you know the United States is the only country among 22 countries ranked high for economic and human development that does not guarantee paid sick days or sick leave for workers? CEPR breaks it down in a separate study, “Contagion Nation.”

Take Action
National Partnership for Women & Families: Support paid sick days. Find out if your elected officials have cosponsored the Healthy Families Act, and please urge them to do so today.

President Obama is taking the health care debate to the people (starting with Saturday’s weekly radio address, which irked Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley. And it looks like there could be a major shift over taxing employer-sponsored health insurance (more on what that means). In other news …

The single-payer model will finally get some attention on Wednesday when the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee of the House Education & Labor Committee holds a hearing titled “Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option.” The hearing starts at 10:30 a.m. in 2175 Rayburn House Office Building. It’s open to the public, but you’ll have to get there early to get a seat. The webcast may be shown here.

A story in the Washington Post this past weekend portrayed single-payer advocates as a thorn in Obama’s side. Dan Eggen writes:

The White House and Democratic leaders have made clear there is no chance that Congress will adopt a single-payer approach — named for the idea that a single government-backed insurance plan would pay for all Americans’ medical costs — because it is too radical a change.

That has not dissuaded single-payer activists, who have spent months hounding Democratic lawmakers and organizing demonstrations, including one that resulted in 13 arrests at a Senate hearing last month. The offensive continues this weekend with plans to swamp a series of “house parties” on health care hosted by Organizing for America, an Obama-backed project at the Democratic National Committee.

The movement poses both an opportunity and a challenge for Obama, who is able to position himself as a centrist by opposing a single-payer plan but who risks angering a vocal part of the Democratic base.

“Obama is really the one who is puzzling to us,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, a union that has been leading many of the single-payer protests. “We were all supporters of him. . . . It’s hard to understand how he can expect to rally support around a plan that will leave the big insurance companies in charge and keep hurting patients.”

Plus: The Nation talks with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders about single payer and the various public insurance options now under consideration.

A draft of the health care bill authored by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, led by Sen. Edward Kennedy, is now under review. The bill includes provisions that would guarantee health coverage for all Americans, including government-subsidized premiums for people with incomes up to 500 percent of the poverty level ($110,000 for a family of four). The bill would penalize employers who do not help to provide insurance.

“Though the bill is far from finished, lacks key details and only touches on one of [the] categories of reform, it offers a glimpse into the direction the Democrats hope to take the American healthcare system,” writes Jeffrey Young at The Hill. The bill, Young adds, “is limited to the areas of health insurance coverage and does not touch upon contentious issues such as the creation of a government-run health plan or how to pay for the expected $1 trillion-plus cost of the total package.”

Kennedy is in Massachusetts, undergoing treatment for brain cancer, and his gravitas on the Hill is missed. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, the No. 2 Democrat on the health committee, has taken on the main role, reports The New York Times.

The White House sponsored a women’s health round-table on Friday. Cindy Pearson, executive director of the National Women’s Health Network, took part, representing both NWHN and Raising Women’s Voices, as did Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, and Sabrina Corlette, director of health policy programs at the National Partnership of Women and Families. The White House Briefing Room blog has some (very) lite coverage.

Plus: HealthReform.gov published a summary of why the current healthcare system doesn’t work for women.

In a move that caught pro-choice activists off-guard, Obama named Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), to head the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Kelley is a leading proponent of ‘common ground’ abortion reduction — only CACG’s common ground is at odds with that of Obama,” writes Sarah Posner at TAPPED. “While the administration favors reducing the need for abortion by reducing unintended pregnancies, Kelley has made clear that she seeks instead to reduce access to abortion. That is an extremely disturbing development, especially coming this week in the wake of George Tiller’s assassination.”

Frances Kissling, past president of Catholics for a Free Choice, urges greater oversight on future appointments.

Meanwhile, Loretta Ross, national coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, is also disappointed with Obama positioning himself in the middle of the road. “I believe President Obama should show strong leadership in repealing the Hyde Amendment that prohibits public funding for abortions for poor women,” Ross writes at On the Issues magazine. “This would send a strong signal of support to his allies in the reproductive justice movement and we need his leadership on this issue.”

Ross continues:

In fact, if President Obama helps repeal Hyde, he is merely following in the footsteps of Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, both of whom showed strong support for family planning at one point.

In May 2009 in hyping a controversy over President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame University in Indiana, anti-abortionists incorrectly vilified President Obama for being the most “pro-abortion” president in history.  They conveniently forget Richard Nixon’s and George H.W. Bush’s support for family planning in the 1960s and 1970s. According to research by the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, President Nixon pledged his commitment for all family planning methods in a July 18, 1969 message to Congress.

A great piece — go read the rest.

Take Action
National Advocates for Pregnant Women: Urge your senator to vote now to confirm President Obama’s nomination of Dawn Johnsen (pdf) to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the division responsible for providing legal advice to the president and key agencies, particularly on matters related to the “War on Terror” and to homeland security.

“Given the recent murder of Dr. George Tiller, something many see as an act of domestic terrorism, it is more important than ever to have someone in that office who understands law enforcement, the appropriate uses of government power to counter terrorism and the centrality of reproductive justice to the lives, health and safety of women and their health care providers,” NAPW said in an email.

Democracy for America: Live chat on healthcare reform with Howard Dean — Tuesday, June 9, at 9 p.m., EST. Sign up here.