Nearly six in ten American voters want the Supreme Court to overturn at least part of the 2010 health care law, according to a new Fox News poll.

The Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision on the law by the end of June.

Click here to view the full results.

The poll, released Friday, finds 38 percent of voters think the Supreme Court should toss out the entire law, while another 21 percent would keep most of the law, but invalidate the mandate for Americans to buy health insurance. Three voters in 10 think the court should let the entire law stand (30 percent).

When asked directly if the requirement to buy health insurance is a violation of individual rights protected by the Constitution, 60 percent of voters say yes -- almost identical to the number who think the court should overturn at least that part of the health care law.

Nearly nine of 10 Republicans (87 percent), two-thirds of independents (66 percent) and a third of Democrats (33 percent) think the individual mandate is a violation of individual rights.

Democrats (53 percent) are more than twice as likely as independents (22 percent) and five times more likely than Republicans (10 percent) to think the Supreme Court should let the health care law stand.

A 65-percent majority of Republicans and a 40-percent plurality of independents want the law overturned completely. Some 14 percent of Democrats agree.

In general, more voters oppose the new health care law than favor it (49-40 percent). In April, soon after the court heard oral arguments, 53 percent were opposed and 40 percent favored it.

Slightly more voters say they trust Barack Obama (43 percent) than Mitt Romney (40 percent) to handle the health care issue. Nine percent say neither.

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FOX NEWS POLL: Majority say ObamaCare violates rights- VIDEO: ObamaCare's effect on hospitals

With all the attention paid to affordable health care, experts say standard dental coverage has changed little over the last 20 years while leading to greater out-of-pocket costs for consumers.

As with the rising costs of overall health care, many times only the wealthiest have access to important dental care.

Dr. Paul Glassman DDS, professor of dental practice and director of community oral health at University of the Pacific, said dental benefits and the cap on dental health plan benefits have not changed much in the past 20 years. But the cost of dental care has increased "dramatically."

"A plan that covered $1,000 used to get a lot," he said. "Now if you have an exam and get fillings, you've used your maximum."

As a result, more people are paying out of pocket if they want additional work done, he said.

And those who struggle to afford oral health care may find even more problems down the line, with gum disease possibly contributing to ailments like diabetes and heart disease.

Real out-of-pocket dental expenditures increased to $332 in 2008 from $270 in 1996, according to the American Dental Association's (ADA) report published in April called, "Breaking Down Barriers to Oral health for All Americans: The Role of Finance." The ADA said the figure dropped to $323 in 2009, but "this likely reflects the state of the economy, rather than any improvement in dental benefits."

Real per capita expenditures on overall personal health care reached $6,819 in 2009.

Glassman said a number of issues have contributed to dental care's higher costs. One major reason is that labor costs have increased in dental offices.

"Despite the recession, demand for their services was pretty good," he said. "So they were able to raise prices and still able to have busy practices."

See the article here:

Dental Plans: Paying More For Less?

UCSF Researchers Studied Program That Could Reduce National Health Care Expenses By $6 Billion a Year

Newswise Creating specialized hospital units for elderly people with acute medical illness could reduce national health care costs by as much $6 billion a year, according to a new study by UCSF researchers.

The team assessed a program called Acute Care for Elders, or ACE, which offers individualized care for older patients in specially designed hospital units. It is being piloted in 200 hospitals nationwide, serving an estimated 100,000 patients annually.

The Medicare proportion of the health care budget is going up faster than anything else, and the cost of hospital stays is one of the fastest growing components of that care, said senior author Seth Landefeld, MD, chief of the UCSF Division of Geriatrics. This was really an opportunity to look at how you can deliver higher value care while maintaining or improving quality and reducing cost.

In their research, published this week in the June issue of Health Affairs, Landefeld and his colleagues conducted a randomized controlled study of 1,632 elderly patients seen either in the ACE program or a traditional inpatient hospital setting between August 1993 to May 1997. They found that the average length-of-stay was shorter for patients in the ACE program 6.7 days versus 7.3 days. They also found that patients in the ACE program incurred lower hospital costs, $9,477 versus $10,451, or a savings of $974 per patient. Nationally, said Landefeld, these numbers could translate to a one percent saving of all Medicare expenditures or $6 billion a year.

Whats encouraging about this is the outcomes were identical in both groups. So we were able to save money while maintaining the quality of care, said first author Deborah Barnes, PhD, MPH, an associate professor of Psychiatry and Epidemiology & Biostatistics at UCSF. So despite being released about half a day earlier, patients had similar levels of function at discharge, and also the readmission rates were identical in two groups over three months.

Landefeld and his colleagues say minor changes in the current health care model can yield significant results. Leaving patients in their hospital beds, for example, or constantly interrupting them in the middle of the night for disruptive evaluations, can lead to longer recovery time and longer hospital stays, he said.

What do most elderly people want to do at the hospital? They want to go home, and they want to get there as soon as possible, Landefeld said. In the ACE program, families were involved from day one as opposed to being quarantined from their loved ones. And we looked at restructuring how hospitals work to get more of the benefit without the unintended consequences.

The ACE program works by creating an interdisciplinary team environment that specializes in the care of older patients. The number of clinical staff per patient is similar to traditional units, but patients are assessed daily by the team, and the level of independence and accountability of the nurses is increased.

Part of what ACE does is improve communication and decrease work. And thats a strategy thats generally popular with lots of folks involved, Landefeld said. Youre not asking people to do a lot of extra work. Youre just asking them to do their work differently. The researchers say barriers to ACE being implemented on a larger scale include the ability for clinicians to change ingrained work cultures and adjust schedules to meet and talk about the patients.

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Specialized Hospital Care for Elderly Patients Could Significantly Cut Costs

Provider groups that stepped up to be the cutting edge of Oregon's health reforms say the state is reneging on promises of a financial helping hand.

Led by Gov. John Kitzhaber, lawmakers earlier this year approved ambitious reforms that would turn over the state's Medicaid-funded Oregon Health Plan to beefed-up managed care groups called coordinated care organizations.

Now, members of the new groups are crying foul after a directive Thursday that they'll receive no new funds for the additional responsibilities they've agreed to take on -- mental health care, prevention efforts, quality measurements and new patient-care staff, among others.

They say the success of the reforms is at risk because revamping the care of 600,000 people takes money.

"We're stunned," said Janet Meyer, interim CEO of a consortium of Portland-area hospitals and other providers called the Tri-County Medicaid Collaborative. "That wasn't the impression we had been given throughout the process."

But the new groups simply have to be more creative, says Oregon Health Authority Director Bruce Goldberg, who is overseeing the reforms. "There are no additional dollars," he said.

The state asked the new care groups to submit rate requests based on their projected costs, but on Thursday informed the groups that those requests should be no greater than last year's rate, which itself was an 11-percent cut.

The message was "if it's not around this number -- and very close -- you will not be accepted as a CCO," said Jeff Heatherington, who heads FamilyCare, a Portland-based physician group that is among the new care groups.

The state's mandated CCO rates -- about $250 per member per month, in some cases -- are about 20 percent less than what the groups requested based on costs.

Some managed care groups "have really been struggling" and need more money, said pediatrician Bob Dannenhoffer of Douglas County's Umpqua Health Alliance. He said he hopes the state makes allowances on requirements such as quality of care reporting.

Read more:

New health care groups say Oregon's reforms could sputter without more cash

WASHINGTON After weeks of talks, drug industry lobbyists were growing nervous. To cut a deal with the White House on overhauling health care, they needed to be sure that President Obama would stop a proposal intended to bring down medicine prices.

On June 3, 2009, one of the lobbyists e-mailed Nancy-Ann DeParle, the presidents health care adviser. Ms. DeParle reassured the lobbyist. Although Mr. Obama was overseas, she wrote, she and other top officials had made decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose importation on a different proposal.

Just like that, Mr. Obamas staff signaled a willingness to put aside support for the reimportation of prescription medicines at lower prices and by doing so solidified a compact with an industry the president had vilified on the campaign trail. Central to Mr. Obamas drive to remake the nations health care system was an unlikely collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry that forced unappealing trade-offs.

Other political news of note

Under fire from Republicans, President Obama clarified an earlier assessment of the health of the private sector, explaining that it's "absolutely clear" the economy is not doing "fine."

The e-mail exchange three years ago was among a cache of messages obtained from the industry and released in recent weeks by House Republicans including a new batch put out Friday detailing the industrys advertising campaign supporting Mr. Obamas health care overhaul. The broad contours of his dealings with the industry were known in 2009, but the newly public e-mails open a window into the compromises underlying a health care law now awaiting the judgment of the Supreme Court.

Mr. Obamas deal-making in 2009 represented a pivotal moment in his young presidency, a juncture where the heady idealism of the campaign trail collided with the messy reality of Washington policy making. A president who had promised to negotiate on C-Span cut a closed-door deal with a powerful lobby, signifying to disillusioned liberal supporters a loss of innocence, or perhaps even the triumph of cynicism.

But the bargain was one that the president deemed necessary to forestall industry opposition that had thwarted efforts to cover the uninsured for generations. Without the deal, in which the industry agreed to provide $80 billion to expand coverage in exchange for protection from policies that would cost more, Mr. Obama calculated he might get nowhere.

Throughout his campaign, President Obama was clear that he would bring every stakeholder to the table in order to pass health reform, even longtime opponents like the pharmaceutical industry, Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said Friday. He understood correctly that the unwillingness to work with people on both sides of the issue was one of the reasons why it took a century to pass health reform.

Republicans see the deal as hypocritical. He said it was going to be the most open and honest and transparent administration ever and lobbyists wont be drafting the bills, said Representative Michael C. Burgess of Texas, a Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee examining the deal. Then when it came time, the door closed, the lobbyists came in and the bills were written.

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NYT: Drug industry pushed Obama