Sweeney, NJEA Deal on Health Care Hikes

Two years ago sponsors claimed that “savings under the new proposal would clock in at just over $1 billion a year—$670 million that local school districts would save and $403 million that the NJEA members would save.”

However, in real life:

Metabolical (2)

Subtitled “The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine” the book offers a lot of wisdom that I wish I were smarter enough to fully comprehend.

More excerpts:

Metabolical (1)

Subtitled “The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine” the book offers a lot of wisdom that I wish I were smarter enough to fully comprehend.

Excerpts so far:

Rate Reductions and Premium Contribution “Holiday” in NJ

Yesterday the “New Jersey Department of the Treasury announced sizable rate reductions and a premium contribution ‘holiday’ for eligible employers and members of the School Employees’ Health Benefits Program (SEHBP) for Plan Year 2022.”

Here are excerpts from further details along with some wisdom from Kenny G.

Insuring Bankruptcy

General Motors spends more on health care than steel. Kathleen Sebelius

Based on check registry data put into worksheets Kenilworth (and likely most municipalities in New Jersey) spend much more on insurance than politicians can steal.

Each of these rows has a story. Among the more interesting:

Reforming Health Insurance

The Manhattan Institute came out with an issue brief that focused on the evils of state insurance regulation:

The Hospital (2)

Everybody – the nurses in Montpelier who massaged patient reports so people could receive the help they needed, administrators who “upcoded” diagnostic notes so Medicare or private insurance would fully reimburse for services, drug company CEOs who tacked a pointless molecule onto an old drug so they could patent it all over again- knew that American medicine was one big grift. The only question was whether you were grifting to benefit people or to cash in. Whatever the motivation, you had to game the system. (page 233)

Another key excerpt from a book subtitled Life, and Dollars in a Small American Town that offers insight into both the hospital and its patients.

The Hospital (1)

But Americans would continue to talk about the crisis in medical care as they had done for a hundred years – and most of that talk would be about the leaves and twigs and branches and miss the roots altogether. (page 30)

Key excerpt from a book subtitled Life, and Dollars in a Small American Town that offers insight into both the hospital and its patients.

What Doesn’t Kill You (2)

Subtitled ‘A Life with Chronic Illness – Lessons from a Body in Revolt’ the rest of the book offers more insights.

What Doesn’t Kill You (1)

Subtitled ‘A Life with Chronic Illness – Lessons from a Body in Revolt’ the book offers an insight into what a friend may be going through but also gets into a bit of insurance and doctor bashing that makes it perversely entertaining to one who is still mostly an outsider and not yet a casualty of this country’s health care system.