The health-care insurance debate continues. Here's an array of sites with background information, key historical documents, statistical reports, source lists, and database sellers, that can help you cover this complex and critical issue. The Health Care Financing Administration's site is full of useful background material. The text to the 1995 Medicare Handbook is there, covering topics such as "What is Medicare?" "What Medicare Does not Pay For," "How to Appeal Medicare Decisions," and "Events That Can End Your Medicare Protection." There are also other pamphlets, and a helpful listing of commonly asked questions about Medicare (good for sidebars). There are statistical tables available by state and county, such as "Standardized per capita rates of payment aged and disabled - parts A and B," which allows quick comparisons between regional Medicare payments. Speeches and press releases from the agency, and links to other sites with information related to health care, round out the service. Put this on your bookmark list. http://www.ssa.gov/hcfa/hcfahp2.html
The Census Department's Statistical Abstract of the United States lists percentages, by state, of people without health insurance for 1990-1992. http://www.census.gov/stat_abstract/hlthtb.pm
The document http://www.census.gov/stat_abstract/health.gif is a color coded map indicating levels of non-insured persons.
This very ugly address leads to a very pretty application, a searchable "Guide to Sources" of other data from the Census Bureau, other Federal agencies, and private organizations. Type "medicare" into the query box and get a leads list to places you should check for more information. http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/htgrep file-source.txt&style=pre
A press release from President Clinton, dated Oct. 27, 1993, discusses the Medicare plan for older Americans. http://docs.whitehouse.gov/white-house-publications/1993/10/1993-10-27-the-health-plan-appendix-i.text
Text of the Health Security Act of 1993 is a key background document. http://sunsite.unc.edu/nhs/executive/x-Summary-toc.html
The Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform Interim Report to the President, August 1994: Finding No. 4 discusses the impact of increased health care costs. Links to a graphic showing a timeline of "What our future looks like - if we fail to act," illustrates that by 2030, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and federal employee retirement will consume all federal tax revenue. http://www.charm.net/~dcarolco/interim/interim.html
Meanwhile, Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, a law firm in Washington D.C., has put together an interesting list of Medicare-related cases it has worked on. Although this is obviously a promotion for the firm, the types of cases might be an interesting read. http://www.arentfox.com/e1.4.html
For one interest group's interpretation of the health-care financing situation in America, check out the International Society For Individual Liberty pamphlet called, "We Can Have Affordable Health Care." It's worth visiting just to see the graphic of the doctor coming at you with stethoscope. http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu/liberty/isil/healthcare.html
HCIA Inc., a health-care information company, harbors an interesting inventory of health-care related databases, including order forms for data on 6,500 U.S. hospitals, 16,000 nursing homes, and more than 2.5 million detailed patient records. It also includes links to the Centers for Disease Control, which also sells data. http://www.hcia.com/index.html
The compilers at Global Network Navigator have put together a wonderful list of sources on a variety of health related topics. It links to the best sites for background on alternative medicine, disabilities, diseases and conditions, general health, mental health, nutrition, professional medicine, and health organizations. http://nearnet.gnn.com/wic/med.toc.html#policy
Finally, for news groups, look for talk.politics.medicine
Let me make a little pitch here for Infoseek. For $9.95 a month (first month free) you get access to a powerful free-text search service. You can search the text of thousands of messages groups by any word. A great way to find people who are talking about a particular topic. To find out more about Infoseek (no, I'm not a stockholder nor do any relatives work for them) go to http://www.infoseek.com.
If you have suggestions for this column, email Nora Paul at npaul@poynter.org. Visit the Poynter Institute's website at http://www.nando.net/prof/poynter/home.html. It features Paul's Hot News/Hot Research in the Poynter Institute's library section. It takes news stories and links you to some good sources for information to cover that story. To go directly to the page: http://www.nando.net/prof/poynter/hrintro.html
Nora Paul is a former Miami Herald librarian now at the Poynter Institute. She is the author of Computer Assisted Research, available from the Poynter Institute and NICAR.