“Cost” of current Health Care Reform proposal over ten years: $1 trillion (12 zeros )
This “cost” is the expense of subsidizing equal access to health coverage benefits for
more Americans; an investment that might have a quicker return than the “cost” of several
aircraft carriers or the preservation of more forests.
Percent that the AMA promised Obama that physicians could slow the growth of medical care costs
per year for ten years: 1.5
Estimated “savings” that represents: $1 trillion (12 zeros)
Estimated average reduction of annual health care costs for a “typical” family: $2,500
Amount hospitals offered to “give up” in future Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements: $155
billion (9 zeros)
Amount pharmaceutical companies promised to Senate Finance Committee (Chairman, Senator
Baucus) to “give up” over ten years: $80 million (7 zeros)
Amount former Health South CEO Richard Scrushy has been ordered by a state court to pay back
to stockholders who sued him for massive accounting fraud: $2.88 billion (9 zeros)
This was a civil suit filed after he had been acquitted in a federal crime case about “faked”
reports filed with regulators from 1996 to 2002.
Percent of Americans currently covered by Medicare: 15
Percent of Americans currently uninsured: 15
Percent of uninsured remaining after implementation of Massachusetts Health Reform of 2006: 2.6
Estimated and actual cost of Mass Health Reform for 2008 respectively: $400 million / $625 million
Amount MassHealth reimburses hospitals for services to poor patients: < 70 cents on a dollar
Number of pages in Senator Kennedy’s Health Care Reform bill (Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pension -HELP): 615 (reduced from 850 pages in the first draft)
Number of pages in Republican’s health care reform proposal: 3
Estimated percent reduction of uninsured under HELP bill: 3 (from 15% to 12%)
Number of House Committees working on a draft of a Health Care Reform bill: 3
Number of ALL Health Care Reform bills that include a “single payer mechanism”: 0
Percent of people polled who favor a single payer system in February 2009: 59%
Percent of 2,000 physicians polled who favor a single payer system in April 2008: 59%
One working title of the House draft of Health Care Reform: “Comprehensive Incrementalism”
Potential “fatal flaw” shared by Presidents Hoover and Obama despite both “being able to see the
big picture” and both “being perceived as problem-solving saviors” when elected in the midst of
financial turmoil: “incrementalism”
QUOTABLE QUOTE
“If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.” — Otto von Bismarck
Sources:
“Achieving Health Care Reform – How Physicians Can Help”; NEJM 360:24, pg. 2495; Fisher,
Berwick, and Davis
“The Proposed Government Health Insurance Company – No Substitute for Real Reform”; NEJM
360-22, pg.2274; V. Fuchs
Associated Press, Cape Cod Times, June 19, 2009
“Mass. Appeal”; Hospitals and Health Networks, May 09, pg. 27, H.D. Larkin
“Building Momentum as Democrats Forge Health Care Reform”; NEJM 360”23, Pg. 2385, J.
Inglehart
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Washington-Watch/14955 July 9, 2009
NY Times random telephone Poll, February 2009; Annals of Internal Medicine vol. 148, April 1,
2008; A. Carroll, R. Ackerman
“Barrack Hoover Obama: The Best and the Brightest Blow It Again”; Harpers Magazine, July 2009,
pg. 29 – 37
HUB's LIST of medical fun facts 