Let's talk Mayo Clinic

and Hillary, for that matter.

But focusing on the Mayo Clinic for a sec ... The clinic on Friday released 19 recommendations for health care reform. One of their major proposals is to make health insurance more portable. I mentioned this topic in my last post. I simply cannot stress enough how much I support portable health insurance. It doesn't make any sense to have it tied to employers anymore. I mean, hello, people of my generation have extreme ADD when it comes to holding a job. How are we ever supposed to establish a connection with a doctor, which will help us receive better, more coordinated care, if we keep having to change insurance providers every year and a half? New York Times says that one and four change jobs every year ... and I think they might be referring to me, haha.

What really surprised me about the coverage on this was the employer response. According to the Times,

Executives of several large employers who took part in the Mayo discussions agreed that rising medical costs and the aging of the baby boomer generation were pushing the current system toward a crisis. But they said they were not ready to abandon their current health plans for employees.

“We do not believe in relinquishing the employer-sponsored health care system,” said Anthony C. Wisniewski, a Mayo panelist who is executive director of health care policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce.

That's basically all the article says about it, which is kind of annoying because I want to know WHY they don't want to give up health insurance. It would make them totally more profitable. God knows those car makers are itching to drop insurance coverage ... why not businesses in the Chamber of Commerce? Perhaps because a good insurance plan makes a job offer more attractive? Hard to say without a better background in business.

You can read the rest of the recommendations here. Overall, I felt like the recommendations were very thought out .. radical but not so radical it couldn't be done. I'm very hopeful that Hillary will implement some of their recommendations into her reform. The whole quality-cost debate I think is pretty standard, but portability is something I would really like to see implemented.

Now on to discussing my girl Hill's proposal. Since I didn't cover it at work (as I did the Mayo Clinic) this is news to me too. Looking a press release from today on her website, the final prong of her three prong plan includes none other than --- PORTABILITY. (Full disclosure: I love Hillary. I volunteer for her campaign. Which truly demonstrates my love because I hate making cold calls ... but for her, I do it.). She even throws in tax credits. Listen to her: "If you like the plan you have, you can keep it." It's genius. She has some other good things outlined in the press release, so I recommend reading it.

From a different press release (the mainstream media will have more detailed coverage tomorrow ... if I have time I'll post some the main pieces so I am not completely one-sided.):

If you’re one of the tens of million Americans without coverage or if you don’t like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and that coverage will be affordable. Of course, if you like the plan you have, you can keep it.

• Affordable: Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums send people into bankruptcy, the plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage of their income for health care.
• Available: No discrimination. The insurance companies can’t deny you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.
• Reliable: It’s portable. If you change or lose your job, you keep your health care.

...If you have a plan you like, you keep it. If you want to change plans or aren’t currently covered, you can choose from dozens of the same plans available to members of Congress, or you can opt into a public plan option like Medicare. And working families will get tax credits to help pay their premiums.

Reading this shit practically makes me giddy. Also, hopefully you caught last week's Newsweek, which had extensive coverage about Hillary and "what kind of decision maker she'd be." It has some good insight into the lessons she's learned from the failed health care reform attempt of 1993/4. Here's a different web exclusive article on health care and Hillary.