Friday, August 31, 2012

Health Reform Team Canvassing and other ways to help



Join our National Health Reform Team for Obama as we canvass for votes in Virginia, or see other ways to help the campaign.  See below for details 

Other things you can do, make calls from your local office or from home, join us for canvassing on 9/8 in Montgomery County, MD to Virginia.  See me for a yard sign if you live in Montgomery County, MD or contact me for other options at thausner@gmail.com

See http://dashboard.barackobama.com  for other ways to help.  

If you canvass, please rsvp as indicated below and let me know via email at thausner@gmail.com and I will try to pair you up with health reform team members.  


GSS Canvassing in VA

Saturday, September 8,  09:00 AM – 2 p.m.
Eastern Middle School (MCPS) (Silver Spring, MD)
Join us to carpool to VA to go door to door to talk with VA voters. Share your enthusiasm and commitment with others.
Canvass

RSVP
 

MBC Canvassing in Virginia



Saturday, September 8, 09:00 AM – 2:00 p.m.
Bethesda Chevy Chase High School (Chelton Rd. parking lot) (Bethesda, MD)
Meet up with fellow volunteers so we can carpool to canvass in Virginia.
Canvass

RSVP



Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Medicaid: Its Role Today and Under the Affordable Care Act and Great Musical Video on Obama

1) Medicaid: Its Role Today and Under the Affordable Care Act

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1352118

this is a good summary of the impact of obamacare on medicaid. 

2) Musical Video to the music of Les miserables supporting obama.  Very effective.

http://www.onetermmore.com/video_subtitles.html

3) Consumer Union Testimony in april on medicare premium support proposal

http://www.consumersunion.org/pdf/Medicare_Premium_Support_Proposals_Testimony.pdf

4) from herndon alliance

  How bad is the Ryan-Akin anti-abortion bill? Washington Post by Greg Sargent

  Peter Orszag: Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan 'Flawed,' Relies On The 'Competition Tooth Fairy' Huffington Post by Bonnie Kavoussi

 

Monday, August 20, 2012

articles for 082012

1) from herndon alliance newsletter

o   Ryan Plan Would Crush Seniors Beneath Mounting Medical Costs U.S. News by Ethan Rome

2) From Kaiser health news

CNN Money: How Romney-Ryan Could Weaken Traditional Medicare

The New York Times: An Unserious Man 

This editorial describes all the drastic cuts ryan proposes for medicaid and other safety net programs.

3)  here is an effective ad from national Cmte to preserve social security and medicare

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151024999076704&set=a.139309061703.110064.64206021703&type=1&relevant_count=1
 

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Articles, etc for 081912

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/truth-and-lies-about-medicare.html?_r=1&hp

well written editorial in NYTimes, please share widely. this is posted on our facebook page: National health Reform Team for Obama


---------------------------------
the Silver Spring team needs a leader, one of you please step up.

OFA is looking for a low or no cost office space thru Election Day. Any leads, call 301-946-1000 or contact me at thausner@gmail.com
------------------
there are three items previously posted.

1) Ways to help National health reform team
please read the following blog posting, share widely and respond to the posting
http://tinyurl.com/c93zoat

2) For phonebank night on 8/28, see
http://tinyurl.com/chmef2n

3) For 9/22 Picnic
http://tinyurl.com/bwpp578

Friday, August 17, 2012

Article of interest - 8/17/12

"We Haven't Run The Numbers": The Startling Paul Ryan Admission Getting Little Attention

http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/we-havent-run-numbers-startling-paul-ryan-admission-getting-little-attention 

President Obama releases his first Medicare-themed attack ad of the Romney-Ryan era.


a good ad, but could go further, such as obamacare closes donut hole, adds preventive services.  the cuts are to health insurance companies, hospitals, not to benefits. A much better ad is posted on the National Health Reform Team for Obama facebook page

 https://www.facebook.com/NationalHealthReformTeamForObama

see   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QQxGEQm6Qo
this video is excellent, please share widely. It contrasts obama vs romney on medicare

Republican Budget Quiz - very useful

Republican Budget Quiz

http://bit.ly/OkHrQS



Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Health Reform Strengthens Medicare, Doesn’t “Rob” It

http://www.offthechartsblog.org/health-reform-strengthens-medicare-doesnt-rob-it/

this is an excellent article by robert greenstein of cbpp, one of the best policy analysts in the field. 

Phonebank night - 8/28 for National Health Reform Team for Obama

The National Health Reform Team for Obama is sponsoring a phonebank night on Tuesday, August 28, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. EDT.  For those in different time zones, we suggest you call from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. according to your timezone. 

Calls will be made for those in Montgomery County, Maryland from the Obama for America Maryland Office in Kensington office,  3750 University Blvd. West, Suite 303, Kensington, MD 2089, phone  240-242-575.   If you live elsewhere, I suggest you see if there is any office or event near you by going to
https://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple

You can also make calls from home by http://call.barackobama.com

The best states to call are VA, PA, WI, OH, FL, NH, OR, and MT.

For those not into phonecalls, see the office, event, or activity nearest you which can be found at barackobama.com site.  See the take action section.

Please let me know the results of your calls via email to thausner@gmail.com

For those in Maryland, you are invited to the Greater Silver Spring Democratic Club's Annual Picnic on 9/22, See http://tinyurl.com/bwpp578   for details or contact me.  Lots of elected officials will be attending.

The Greater Silver Spring Democratic Club is a cosponsor of the phonebank night. Additional organizations are invited to cosponsor.

If anyone in montgomery county wants a yard sign, please let me know as soon as possible as we will have to order them.  It will cost about $3. 


Thanks.

Tony Hausner
thausner@gmail.com
301-5876943



Monday, August 13, 2012

Ways to support our National Health Reform Team for Obama

Ways to support our National Health Reform Team for Obama 

·         Please  share material posted on this page with facebook friends and/or  email contacts
·   For those not on our facebook page and on facebook, please join at  https://www.facebook.com/NationalHealthReformTeamForObama  and send emails to your contacts to join this page.
·         Put up a yard sign, bumper sticker, and/or button. See https://barackobama.com  to order. Share yard signs, etc. with friends and neighbors, etc.
·         Join our dashboard teams to support our efforts https://dashboard.barackobama.com/groups/1298-national-health-reformteam-for-o
·         Please send me an email to volunteer, thausner@gmail.com
·         Please let me know if you are willing to make phone calls, either from home or your local office.
·         Volunteer to help organize events, or help in other ways.  Please let me know.
·         Volunteer to be a co-adminstrator of the facebook page, which will allow you to add content to our facebook page.

Here are additional thoughts
please join our National and Maryland Health Care Reform Teams for Obama on the Obama dashboard. These groups will share information on health reform, organize events, convince voters of the need to re-elect President Obama, and related activities.  Please spread the word. 
here is a link to the National Health Reform Team.

here is link to Maryland Health Reform Team 

here is a message I sent to the national team and a similar one to the Maryland team.  Please let me know of any comments on this message. 


National Health Reform Team for Obama
Welcome to all those who have joined this team.  So far 26 of us have joined which is a good start.  I hope you can get others to join.   
   1) Next Steps
There are several steps that I think can be taken to support Obama because of his work on Obamacare [the Affordable Care Act (ACA)]  My understanding is that Obama has embraced the term Obamacare.
·         Encourage folks who support Obamacare to actively volunteer to support Obama and/or Obamacare, by making phonecalls, canvassing, making contributions, posting signs, etc.
·         Convince folks who might be reachable of the advantages of Obamacare.  I have thoughts on this, but welcome suggestions on how to do this. 
Here are a few steps that are more specific along these lines.
·         Send messages to all the folks we know that we think might be interested, encourage them to support health reform and/or Obama.
·         Share key literature with these folks and/or the information sources mentioned below..
·         I have a list of 900 folks in Montgomery County that support Obamacare. We could call that list and encourage them to volunteer to support Obama.  Calls can be made at the Obama office in Kensington or from home. 
·         Identify other organizations and individuals that we could work with

I welcome other suggestions
·         on things we can do,
·         on ways to implement these actions
Please indicate which of the above activities you are willing to be involved   .
 2)      Information Sources
Here are few ideas on sources of information that you can use to support the above.  I have a blog in which I post a few times per week.  I will send you a few of the most important in the future as we proceed.  These posts are brief and cover some of the most important articles, etc that I have seen lately. 

  a)      For a recent Celebration of the Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare, I prepared a summary of the law and list of key reference materials which can be found at the following:
At the celebration on 7/17, we first called folks in Montgomery County who were known supporters of Obamacare and asked them to be volunteers for the campaign.  We had almost 30 folks at the party, and made over 200 phone calls in 90 minutes. 
Please let me know your comments on the materials on this blog post, on how to use them, etc.
  b)      For those who want to keep up with health care news, I highly recommend
it  is a daily newsletter
Another daily newsletter that is quite useful is provided by
write to Pete Van Vranken pvan@gmavt.net  
and ask to be placed on his health care media emailing list.
One of the articles I found as a result of the Herndon news is the following

http://tinyurl.com/cjd927j   Obama embraces health care law after court ruling

          3)  Greater Silver Spring Democratic Club Annual Picnic
For those of you who live in or near Montgomery County,MD  I invite you to this event which will be held on 9/22.  For more details, see http://tinyurl.com/bwpp578
 4)      Contact
Please feel free to contact me at thausner@gmail.com  301-587-6943.


Saturday, August 11, 2012

Ryan’s Budget Attempts to End Medicare and Shift Costs to Seniors; and other health related articles on Ryan

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/04/ryan_medicare.html/

I am very pleased that Romney has selected Ryan as Ryan's proposals for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the Budget are so disastrous.  Hopefully, the public will see this very clearly and move to support Obama.



Kaiser Health News provides more details on Ryan's plan.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/August/11/paul-ryan-republican-vice-president-candidate-medicare.aspx



http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2012/August/11/ryan-chosen-by-romney.aspx

 Here is what Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities had to say today about Ryan's ideas.  I have a great deal of respect for Greenstein and for his organization. 

http://www.offthechartsblog.org/ryan-2/

Huffington Post article 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-oneill/the-romneyryan-budget-tak_b_1748671.html

Obama's campaign ad

http://tinyurl.com/cz9n272

Friday, August 10, 2012

Today's news

Some articles of interest today from Kaiser health News

 

Survey: Boomers Worry About Medicare’s Future, Want More Details From Candidates

http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2012/08/survey-boomers-worry-about-medicares-future-want-more-details-from-candidates/ 

 

AdWatch: Latest Romney TV ad accuses Obama using health care law to ‘declare war’ on religion

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/adwatch-romney-ad-hits-obama-on-religious-freedom/2012/08/09/6415ac38-e254-11e1-89f7-76e23a982d06_story.html 

Survey: 61 Percent Of Employers Expect Health Law To Drive Up Health Plan Costs

see 

http://smtp01.kaiserhealthnews.org/t/32688/430110/34942/0/

does this make sense given the information previously posted about the deceleration in health care spending. 

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Realigning Health with Care

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/realigning_health_with_care?goback=.gde_966657_member_141520415
interesting article, discusses a very broad view of health, that looks at social services, basic nutrition  approaches, etc. 

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Obamacare may be causing a slowdown in health spending

There is clearly a reduction in the rate of increase in health care spending. This trend has been going on for the past decade or so, but appears to have increased in the past two years. It is possible that Obamacare has contributed to this increase. How important is this trend?  Does Obama need to make more of a point of this, even if he can't attribute it to Obamacare? What is the best way to get this message out.

Here is the latest article on this.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.ordownturng/Daily-Reports/2012/August/08/sequestration-and-health-spending-news.aspx

See the article on: Decleration of Health Spending. See me at Thausner@gmail.com for full article. This is an important article.

Here are some of other articles that I have identified of significance on this topic.



NYTimes

Karen Davis’s blog
org/Blog/2012/Jun/Whats-



Working-Control-Costs.aspx  


Peter Orszag

Altarum Institue
McKinsey Center for U.S. Health Systems Reform

Other articles
thausner@gmail.comthausner@gmail.com

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Message to our National and Maryland Health Reform Teams for Obama


please join our National and Maryland Health Care Reform Teams for Obama. These groups will share information on health reform, organize events, convince voters of the need to re-elect President Obama, and related activities.  Please spread the word. 

here is a link to the National Health Reform Team.

here is link to Maryland Health Reform Team 

here is a message I sent to the national team and a similar one to the Maryland team.  Please let me know of any comments on this message. 


National Health Reform Team for Obama
Welcome to all those who have joined this team.  So far 21 of us have joined which is a good start.  I hope you can get others to join.   
   1) Next Steps
There are several steps that I think can be taken to support Obama because of his work on Obamacare [the Affordable Care Act (ACA)]  My understanding is that Obama has embraced the term Obamacare.
·         Encourage folks who support Obamacare to actively volunteer to support Obama and/or Obamacare, by making phonecalls, canvassing, making contributions, posting signs, etc.
·         Convince folks who might be reachable of the advantages of Obamacare.  I have thoughts on this, but welcome suggestions on how to do this. 
Here are a few steps that are more specific along these lines.
·         Send messages to all the folks we know that we think might be interested, encourage them to support health reform and/or Obama.
·         Share key literature with these folks and/or the information sources mentioned below..
·         I have a list of 900 folks in Montgomery County that support Obamacare. We could call that list and encourage them to volunteer to support Obama.  Calls can be made at the Obama office in Kensington or from home. 
·         Identify other organizations and individuals that we could work with

I welcome other suggestions
·         on things we can do,
·         on ways to implement these actions
Please indicate which of the above activities you are willing to be involved   .
2   2)      Information Sources

Here are few ideas on sources of information that you can use to support the above.  I have a blog in which I post a few times per week.  I will send you a few of the most important in the future as we proceed.  These posts are brief and cover some of the most important articles, etc that I have seen lately. 

a  a)      For a recent Celebration of the Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare, I prepared a summary of the law and list of key reference materials which can be found at the following:
At the celebration on 7/17, we first called folks in Montgomery County who were known supporters of Obamacare and asked them to be volunteers for the campaign.  We had almost 30 folks at the party, and made over 200 phone calls in 90 minutes. 
Please let me know your comments on the materials on this blog post, on how to use them, etc.
b  b)      For those who want to keep up with health care news, I highly recommend
it  is a daily newsletter
Another daily newsletter that is quite useful is provided by
write to Pete Van Vranken pvan@gmavt.net  
and ask to be placed on his health care media emailing list.

One of the articles I found as a result of the Herndon news is the following

http://tinyurl.com/cjd927j   Obama embraces health care law after court ruling

          3)  Greater Silver Spring Democratic Club Annual Picnic

For those of you who live in or near Montgomery County, I invite you to this event which will be held on 9/22.  For more details, see http://tinyurl.com/bwpp578

4  4)      Contact

Please feel free to contact me at thausner@gmail.com  301-587-6943.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Managed Long Term Services and Support (LTSS) and Integration of Post Acute Care

On Friday, I attended an Alliance for Health Reform Session which was cosponsored by AARP.  AARP released a report on a study they did on the use of managed care for persons needing LTSS. [LTSS (Long term services and support) replaces Long term care in the terminology lexicon. Not sure why]. see http://www.allhealth.org/briefing_detail.asp?bi=256
More details on the session will be available in a few days.

Here is a link to AARP's report
http://www.aarp.org/health/medicare-insurance/info-07-2012/keeping-watch-building-state-capacity-to-oversee-medicaid-managed-long-term-services-and-supports-AARP-ppi-health.html

Managed LTSS has the potential to be a cost saver but could lead to reductions in quality of care.  At least 10 states have been doing such programs already and another 10 states are planning to start such programs in the coming year, so this is a major trend forward as States look to reduce costs, and hopefully improve quality.  The session pointed out those states that seemed to be doing the best job at this.  NCQA is developing new measures for these programs. Quality-of-life measures were included in the discussion.

Please contact me via email thausner@gmail.com if you want to see an article by CQHealthbeat on this session.  

Following the session, Josh Wiener at RTI, shared with me findings from a report to congress that they did on the integration of Post acute care.  see

http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Reports/downloads/Flood_PACPRD_RTC_CMS_Report_Jan_2012.pdf

This appears to be a very well done project and is a very important step forward in the integration of the different post acute services.  I am particularly pleased to see their development of a set of quality measures that applies across the different settings.  Having done considerable work in this arena, I am very impressed with the measures developed. They are consistent with those we developed in home health.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Obamacare may have reduced inflation

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/health/policy/in-hopeful-sign-health-spending-is-flattening-out.html?pagewanted=print

here is an article that I missed last april that points to reductions in health care inflation.  I hope to get more details on this.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Cutting health care costs

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/08/health_care_solutions.html

This article was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The authors are among some of the top U. S. health economists. Sponsored by Center for American Progress  (Cap). CAP held a session today with several of these authors. Highly recommend their propsals. See article for their 11proposals. Think pay for performance in FFS needs adding. 

In the session, mention was made that ACA has already significantly lowered costs. I plan to get more details. This is a very important finding that needs more publicity.

John Reichard in CQ healthbeat has an excellent summary of the article and this session.
  
Here is his article republished by the Commonwealth Fund

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Newsletters/Washington-Health-Policy-in-Review/2012/Aug/August-6-2012/Seminal-Health-Cost-Debate-Starts.aspx?omnicid=16 

Reuters has an article about Walmart supporting this proposal:

Wal-Mart backs Democratic plan to cut healthcare costs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/comments/idUSBRE8701MS20120802 

here is an article on yesterday's session
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/other/241971-overnight-health Liberal group touts plan to curb health spending


 

 

 

 


Wednesday, August 1, 2012

New Services to keep women healthy

http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/USHHSHC-4c9be3?reqfrom=share

from healthcare.gov email

Join HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Annic Jobin, WebMD’s Director of News and Partnerships, for a live online discussion on Wednesday, August 1 at 1:30 p.m. EST.
  1. Submit questions in advance on Facebook
  2. Leave a comment on this post from WebMD
  3. Share your thoughts on Twitter - Use the hashtag #womenshealth
  4. See what people are saying about prevention and share this video on YouTube
  5. Use this button to share this message with others: Bookmark and Share