Gov. Brownback on the Health-Care Law, Government Spending

Gov. Sam Brownback, (R-Kan.), on the costs of the health-care law, reducing government spending and Mitt Romneys campaign.

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Kenya health workers agree with government to end 2-week strike

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan public health workers have ended a near two-week strike over pay after reaching a deal with the government which withdrew a threat to sack 25,000 members of their union, officials said on Thursday.

The protest, that left ill patients without medical treatment, was the latest in a string of strikes to grip east Africa's biggest economy in the past year as soaring consumer prices fanned widespread discontent.

"The entire workforce in government hospitals resumed their duties after a return-to-work formula was reached," said Alex Orina, spokesman for the Kenya Health Professionals Society that represents the striking workers.

"Any employee who fails to report on duty by the end of Thursday evening will be dealt with individually according to disciplinary procedures," Orina told Reuters.

He said their workers' demand for pay raises would be addressed in the next government budget that commences in July, and hospitals closed due to the strike have been re-opened.

Kenya's government said last week it had sacked 25,000 public health workers after they refused to end their strike, but had now withdrawn all the dismissal letters. The government had said the health workers were acting unethically.

"All the striking health workers have resumed their duties and now there is no problem in the health sector," Alfred Khangati, an assistant minister in the office of the prime minister which held talks with the workers union.

HIGH COSTS

He told Reuters a team would be formed to look into the problems affecting the health sector, including pay for the workers.

Private hospitals and clinics, where richer families send their sick, have opened as usual because their health workers are not members of the strikers' union.

The striking health workers' union had said the threat of mass sacking was a government ploy to get them to resume work.

Early this month, the government threatened to sack striking workers at the state broadcaster, but rolled back its plan after meeting them, instead agreeing to offer better pay.

Frustration has been mounting in Kenya at the high cost of food and fuel. The government will be keen for the rate of inflation to maintain its downward trend ahead of a general election expected within the next 12 months.

Kenya's inflation rate slowed for the third consecutive month to 16.7 percent in February, after reaching 20 percent in November.

Doctors, university lecturers, primary school teachers and workers at the state broadcaster have also taken strike action within the past year.

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Health Management Associates Appoints Paul Hurst as Senior Vice President of Government Relations

Mon, Jan 30, 2012, 4:49 PM EST - U.S. Markets closed

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Total health spending is slowing. Government health spending isn’t.

???initialComments:true! pubdate:01/11/2012 12:49 EST! commentPeriod:14! commentEndDate:1/25/12 12:49 EST! currentDate:1/12/12 10:0 EST! allowComments:true! displayComments:true!Posted by Sarah Kliff at 12:49 PM ET, 01/11/2012

Largely due to the recession, health care spending grew in 2009 and 2010 at its slowest rate in five decades. What has not slowed, however, is government spending on health care: A new analysis from the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform shows that state and federal spending on health care has grown by 55 percent since 2003, nearly twice as fast as private spending growth. Two changes in health care spending, both also products of the recession, explain this trend.

First, fewer Americans have private health insurance, meaning less spent on monthly premiums. Here’s how the McKinsey report explains it:

Between 2007 and 2009, the number of people with employer-sponsored or private individual insurance fell by nearly 10 million. In 2009, the share of Americans with private insurance slipped to 64.5 percent — the lowest level in 20 years of census records — while the share receiving some form of public insurance hit a record high.

That ties into the second driver: Medicaid rolls have expanded as more Americans lose private coverage, and become eligible for the government health-care program that covers low-income individuals. Medicaid has seen huge enrollment gains and, as this chart from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows, that’s been especially true since 2008:

The overall health care spending slowdown actually masks two divergent trends — one, private health care spending accounts for an increasingly smaller chunk of the $2.6 trillion that the United States spends on health care, and two, government programs foot a larger part of the tab.

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