Tomorrow will be the big meeting of the minds…the health summit between Obama, Dems and Repubs……let us hope that this will not be the circus that I fear it will be……unless these people strat talking to each other instead of the finbger pointing then this will be a huge waste of time and effort….anyway Obama has finally come out with what he will support and they are suppose to go from there…….he wants:

Insurers such as WellPoint Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc and Aetna Inc overall face increased regulations and payment cuts.

* Insurance plans would face a new federal Health Insurance Rate Authority to help U.S. states review “unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans.”

* Restrictions on companies that aim to protect consumers are expanded to add new protections, such as prohibiting all annual and lifetime limits, and ban pre-existing condition exclusions, among others.

* Private Medicare plans called Medicare Advantage would see payment changes that aim to compromise between the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate bills. Reimbursement rates for the plans, which can offer more benefits than traditional fee-for-service Medicare coverage at a higher cost, would set benchmark payments at a certain percentage of traditional Medicare and then phase them out.

* Medicare Advantage plans would also see payment adjustments for unjustified billing practices.

* One small positive for health insurance companies: The 10-year $67 billion in fees they would face would be delayed until 2014.

The brand-name pharmaceutical industry faces another $10 billion in fees over 10 years on top of its earlier agreement with the Senate Finance Committee to provide savings and rebates.

* The industry wide fees, to be parceled out among companies such as Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co Inc, will be used to eliminate a gap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage known as the “doughnut hole.” That could help brand-name companies by getting patients to continue taking their medication rather than switching to a generic or stopping medication altogether.

* In a positive move for the companies, the fees will be delayed by one year until 2011.

Companies that make cheaper, generic versions of brand-name medicines would see an end to lucrative “pay-to-delay” settlements with brand-name drugmakers.

* Obama’s measure gives the U.S. Federal Trade Commission authority to address the settlements and makes it illegal to pay generic manufacturers

“to limit or forego research, development, marketing, manufacturing or sales of the generic drug.”

* Exemptions would only be allowed if the companies can show their settlement would “outweigh the anti-competitive effects of the agreement.”

Medical device makers such as Boston Scientific and Medtronic Inc maintained their earlier win of reducing their costs to $20 billion, down from $40 billion, and won a two-year delay until 2013.

* The industry wide fees were replaced with an excise tax that raises the same amount of revenue over 10 years.

I know a helluva list….but at least we now know exactly what Obama is looking for….read over the list….I do not see many areas for negotiation by the parties if they stick to the line they have held for a year or more…..The summit ought to be a kick in the butt for us political observers….the rest of the world will just tire of the news…and if you will look closely there is still NO elimination of the health industry’s anti-trust exemption….meaning they still control the prices and the screwing of the American people…..there is not tort reform, which will piss off the Repubs and there is nothing in it about ALL Americans….in other words looks a lot like the Senate version that has already passed….so what’s new?