Posts Tagged ‘reform’

New Health Care Law Shifts Funds Toward Younger Patients

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Costs from the health care overhaul are largely being covered by cuts to health care programs for the elderly.

  • Although the new health care law provides coverage for the uninsured, it will also result in cuts to Medicare. This marks a change in the state of affairs in this country: we are accustomed to a system in which the young support the old.
  • The elderly won’t lose any benefits that the law guarantees them, but many Medicare programs are hybrids of public and private insurers, and these will be adversely affected.
  • The change has some seniors worried about a decrease in their quality of life, even as the previously-uninsured are looking forward to an increase in theirs.

Facts & Figures

  • Medicare Advantage, a combination of public and private insurance for the elderly, currently supports 11.3 million people. Cuts to these plans will pay for 15% of the health care bill’s costs.
  • The bill will cost $938 billion over ten years. $455 billion of that money will come from cuts to Medicare and two other federal programs.
  • Medicare Advantage customers will have their benefits reduced by an average of $68 per month by 2019, the Congressional Budget Office says.

Best Quote

“I’m sure that some of those additional benefits have been nice. But I think what we have to look at here is what’s fair and what’s important for the strength of the Medicare program long term.” – Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House Office of Health Reform

Governors In It To Win For Their Schools

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The Obama Administration is encouraging state-level education reforms with the inclusion of $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” incentive built into the federal stimulus.

  • Race to the Top is a federal grant that ties teacher and principal salaries to student test scores, adopts internationally benchmarked academic standards, improves lowest-performing schools, creates systems to track students long-term, and allows for the inclusion of more charter schools.
  • Although considered small by Washington standards, the grant is propelling state legislators to make changes so that their states are eligible for the funding.
  • In October, Governor Schwarzenegger (of California) signed a bill that links teacher pay to student test performance, after calling a special legislative session in August.

Facts & Figures

  • The United States educates an estimated 50 million students every year.
  • If distributed to each and every student, Race to the Top would provide an addtional $87 per year.
  • Grant distribution begins in January 2010.

Best Quote

“They don’t want to be on the losing side of this. Everybody wants to be the education governor, but nobody has asked them to prove it in the past several years. This year the onus is back on them.” – Charles Barone, Democrats for Education Reform