Gatherings of insurance executives and public health doctors this week will be looking at possible changes to the health care overhaul from dramatically different perspectives.
America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group representing nearly 1,300 companies who insure more than 200 million Americans, holds its fall forum Monday through Wednesday in Chicago. The keynote address on Wednesday morning comes from Phil Bredesen, the Democratic governor of Tennessee and an outspoken opponent of parts of the legislation.
Governor Bredesen, who made his fortune years ago founding the insurance company HealthAmerica, has recently pressed his argument that the law would give insurers a powerful incentive to drop their company health-insurance policies for employees. In a conclusion challenged by supporters of the plan, he says companies would direct those workers to government-subsidized policies in the individual markets starting in 2014.
Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, will talk about what the midterm elections mean for health care. Mr. Ornstein is an often liberal voice in a generally conservative think tank. He wrote in The Times last week that gridlock will be the theme of the new Congress and “confrontation will be the order of the day.”
The insurance group follows this with a two-day conference on preparing for state insurance exchanges — something that some governors are trying to stop.
The American Public Health Association is holding its annual meeting in Denver this week with the theme, “Social justice: a public health perspective.” This group, representing more than 12,000 doctors, nurses, administrators and other health workers, strongly supported the health care legislation.
In industry news this week, Pfizer will present data Wednesday at the American College of Rheumatology meeting in Atlanta on its experimental pill tasocitinib for rheumatoid arthritis. The company says its twice-daily pill, which could compete with more expensive injectable drugs, met two out of three primary endpoints in the first of six late-stage clinical trials. It improved symptoms and activity but not the remission rate.
The data was reported last week. “There’s no question it’s beneficial against arthritis,” Dr. Roy M. Fleischmann, principal investigator in the Pfizer-sponsored study and a clinical professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said in an interview Friday. “Then you think about the risks.”
The risks are primarily from higher cholesterol. Dr. Fleischmann said they are manageable. “It’s not perfect, but it’s got a really good benefit-risk ratio,” he said.
Other health-industry news may emerge from a symposium on obesity sponsored by the American Society of Bariatric Physicians Wednesday through Sunday. The meeting focuses on developing bariatric practices.
The group is led by Dr. Eric C. Westman of Duke University, coauthor of “The New Atkins for a New You,” who was recently interviewed about low-carb diets by my colleague Tara Parker-Pope.
