NPR's 'Morning Edition' Looks At Proposals By Major Presidential Candidates To Limit Health Care Spending

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NPR's "Morning Edition" on Friday looked at proposals by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) to limit wellness care costs.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior economic adviser, said that the candidate's plan to provide tax credits to help people buy health insurance would result in about 20 million to 30 zillion more insured person people. He said, "It's going to be $5,000 toward every family's purchase of health insurance, something that basically would be a non-event for people already getting insurance from their employer. But for those who are buying it out of pocket, a lot of help at that place." The plan also aims to help people with pre-existing health conditions world Health Organization cannot discover affordable coverage, McCain has said. According to Holtz-Eakin, the plan would be budget-neutral because its costs would be balanced by a tax on contributions by employers towards health benefits. He declined to project how the contrive would strike U.S. wellness spending, NPR reports.

Obama's be after, which would require many employers to contribute to workers' health insurance, eventually would deoxidise health spending by 8%, David Cutler, Obama's health adviser, aforementioned. The be after would not deny anyone coverage. Cutler said, "What we estimation is that Sen. Obama's health design would reduce the cost of health care by about $2,500 for a typical family. That's a combination of direct out-of-pocket costs that the family no longer has to make and exchange premium payments from their employers that families are now paying in the lour wages that they receive." In improver, with nest egg in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, the government would not need to collect as much in taxes to run those programs, NPR reports.

Both candidates have suggested increasing the availability of preventive forethought, promoting less-expensive generic prescription drugs and developing health information engineering science as shipway to further reduce wellness spending, NPR reports. Uwe Reinhardt, a health economic expert at Princeton University, said such methods likely testament not foreshorten health care costs in the long term, although they volition "enhance caliber of animation" and supply more value for outlay. He added that generic medications currently are widely used and that health care IT is expensive to implement and maintain (Silberner, "Morning Edition," NPR, 8/22).


Reprinted with tolerant permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You hind end view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for e-mail delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.

Options In Prostate Cancer Surgery: Perineal Prostatectomy In The Age Of Minimally Invasive Surgery

�UroToday.com - In the age of minimally invasive surgery, laparoscopic and robotic assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy has been associated with a substantial step-up in operative costs without a significant improvement in outcomes to date. As a result, there has been renewed interest in one of the original approaches to prostate malignant neoplastic disease. In this presentation we compare the MUSC feel with perineal prostatectomy (RPP) to published results victimization laparoscopic and robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (LRP, RALP).


Our experience with over ccc consecutive perineal prostatectomies is presented and operative proficiency reviewed in detail. Issues such as hospital stay, intra-operative blood loss, duration of catheterization, complications, both long and short term, and outcomes will be reviewed. Selective indications for a perineal prostatectomy will be defined and discussed.


The beggarly operative time for RPP was less than that for LRP or RALP. Estimated rakehell loss was equivalent for RPP and RALP and less than that for LRP. Length of catheterization in the RPP group was thirster but was based on a caution map and has been modified to 7 days without problems in the last 75 pts. Length of hospital stay was equivalent for all techniques and hospital costs were significantly less for RPP vs. the alternatives.


A detailed discussion of the current evidence and its quality concerning the various approaches will be undertaken and the audience should have a clear understanding of the current issues at the end of the presentation.


Presented by: Thomas Keane, MD, at the Masters in Urology Meeting - July 31, 2008 - August 2, 2008 - Elbow Beach Resort, Bermuda

UroToday - the only urology website with original cognitive content written by global urogenital medicine key popular opinion leaders actively engaged in clinical practice.


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