The Heritage Foundation Reports

August 5, 2010 | By Amanda J. Reinecker

Full speed ahead on repeal

The quest to repeal Obamacare is not over. In fact, recent events in Virginia and Missouri indicate the battle has just begun.

On Monday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s challenge to the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate overcame its first legal hurdle. His lawsuit protests the federal government’s claimed authority to regulate a person’s decision not to purchase a product such as insurance.

“I don’t think in my lifetime we’ve seen one statute that so erodes liberty than this health care bill,” Cuccinelli said in a recent interview with The Heritage Foundation’s Rob Bluey. Be sure to watch Bluey’s exclusive interview on YouTube.

In rejecting the administration’s request to dismiss Virginia’s case, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson wrote about the dubious logic of the mandate

Unquestionably, this regulation radically changes the landscape of health insurance      coverage in America. … No reported case from any federal appellate court has extended the Commerce Clause or the Tax Clause to include the regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce. 

Just one day after the Virginia decision, the people of Missouri, a bellwether state in 2008, brought their opposition to Obamacare to the ballot box. The results: by a margin of almost 3 to 1, Missourians don’t approve of the mandate and they want out.

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who also sat down for an interview with Bluey, explained the results: 

We had the first vote in the nation in the Show-Me State. And we’re showing the nation the way to repeal and replace this big government, big bureaucracy, one-size-fits-all law… We need other states to put it on the ballot like we did. Or pass it through their state legislatures. And continue the grassroots uprising that’s spreading like a prairie fire all across America. 

Kinder may get his wish. Three other states — Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma — plan to place measures similar to Missouri’s Proposition C on their ballots this November. And still more states are adopting statutes to protect patients’ rights to pay directly for medical services and to withdraw from the individual mandate. To date, five states have already enacted statutory measures: Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia. Legislation has been introduced in 38 states. And three more states are planning to do so soon.

Additionally, 20 states have filed lawsuits similar to Virginia’s against Obamacare.

Heritage Foundation experts will continue to work at the state level to advance principled health care solutions and battle back against Obamacare. “I have learned to pay attention when I get something from Heritage,” says one state lawmaker. “[Heritage] has consistently sent things that are very helpful to me in keeping the scope of this issue in mind.  I am grateful.”

These grassroots efforts across the country illustrate the great political divide in America. As Heritage fellow Ernest Istook writes, it’s a divide between “those who see Washington’s power as limited only by the ability to sway voters and we who see it as limited by design in the U.S. Constitution.”

At least in states like Virginia and Missouri, the Constitution appears to be winning.

Huh? Hospital Makes More Money With Less Business?

07:49 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 4, 2010

 

By JASON ROBERSON / The Dallas Morning News
jroberson@dallasnews.com

Tenet Healthcare Corp. said Tuesday it earned money and increased revenue in the second quarter despite a weak economy and fewer patient admissions.

CEO Trevor Fetter said the results demonstrate the company’s strength in addressing challenges of “a continuing soft macroeconomic environment.”

For the three months that ended June 30, the Dallas-based hospital system reported net income of $25 million, or 5 cents per share, up from a loss of $15 million, or 3 cents a share, during the same period a year earlier.

Tenet’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $268 million in the quarter, an increase of $22 million, or 8.9 percent, from $246 million. Operating revenue increased 3 percent to $2.3 billion.

But private insurance admissions and outpatient visits declined 7.2 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. Hospitals emphasize commercial admissions because they’re more likely to get paid by patients with insurance, usually offered through their jobs.

“While commercial volumes are a part of our story, they’re not the whole story,” Fetter said on a conference call with investors and reporters.

He said that even though private insurance or commercial admissions fell, Tenet had a better mix of commercial business. Lower paying health plans were replaced with higher paying health plans, leading to a 2 percent commercial revenue growth.

Tenet’s shares closed Tuesday at $4.39, down 20 cents.

 

Hospitals’ Dallas-Fort Worth ad spending in good shape

 

08:19 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 4, 2010

 

By JASON ROBERSON / The Dallas Morning News
jroberson@dallasnews.com

The weak economy has siphoned money from advertising budgets in most major industries, but local hospital advertising has remained steady, thanks to one company.

Texas Health Resources, the largest hospital system in North Texas, accounted for about half of not-for-profit advertising spending last year.

Texas Health declined to discuss its specific figures, citing competitive reasons. But the Arlington-based hospital system tripled its advertising spending from 2008 to 2009 with the launch of its rebranding campaign, said Steve Hanson, senior vice president for growth and development at Texas Health.

Last year, local hospitals spent $20.4 million on advertising in Dallas-Fort Worth, up 5 percent from $19.3 million in 2008, according to VMS, a New York-based media intelligence company.

In the hospital sector, not-for-profit hospitals have been the big spenders, accounting for 58 percent of locally placed media dollars in the hospital category last year, according to VMS.

Texas Health sought a brand overhaul because the hospital system is a decade-old byproduct of mergers and acquisitions of several independent hospitals.

Their research found that some in the community thought the name “Texas Health Resources” sounded like a branch of state government, Hanson said.

“The general public didn’t know that name,” Hanson said. “We wanted it known as much to the person on the street as it was to the news media and business community.”

Texas Health spent $1.3 million to prepare for the change, on things such as updating its website, paying legal fees and changing graphic designs on business materials. Through 2011, Texas Health will have spent an additional $17 million to change the signs as well as to add more signs on several campuses.

From 2008 to 2009, Texas Health’s media spending grew by about 145 percent, causing its share-of-voice, a measurement of advertising activity in a fixed time period, to jump from 12 percent to 29 percent.

Baylor Health Care System, the second-largest system in North Texas, saw a 24 percent drop in spending between 2008 and 2009, causing its share-of-voice to drop from 24 percent to 18 percent, according to VMS data.

“I get a flat budget every year,” said Jennifer Coleman, who has been responsible for Baylor’s advertising since 1997. “If I want to go over it, then it’s a negotiation with the chiefs of other [Baylor business] services.”

Measuring advertising and marketing across the board for various hospital systems is tricky because each company breaks out numbers differently. However the numbers are sliced, two advertising market research groups show Texas Health as the biggest spender.

Competition for patients is a driving force behind the advertising.

As Dallas-Fort Worth gains ground on Chicago to become the nation’s third-largest region by population, hospitals are positioning their brands to capitalize on the growth.

It’s a challenge to drive more than a mile on North Central Expressway without seeing a billboard of a content-looking patient who just underwent a successful heart surgery or cancer treatment.

“Their spending has buoyed us for the past couple of years,” said Mike Collins, vice president and general manager of the Dallas office at Titan Outdoor, which handles bus advertisements for Dallas Area Rapid Transit.

Consumer-driven health care also is a trend forcing hospitals to be more transparent with their prices and quality. The federal government and some private research outfits have begun ranking hospitals on price and quality, intensifying the hospitals’ competition.

The data also shows how popular the Dallas market has become to hospitals based elsewhere. Over the past three years, 126 hospitals have advertised in the Dallas market, up from 92 hospitals in 2005.

“Unless there were more than 30 new hospitals built since then, it shows that hospitals outside of the market are spending media dollars in Dallas,” said Pat Harrington, director of client services for the VoiceTrak report from VMS.