Thought leadership on the use of innovation to solve health care access, quality, and funding issues.
From the category archives:
Kaiser Health News, today, featured an interview with Dr. John Kitzhaber. You may recall that Dr. Kitzhaber is the former Democratic governor of Oregon who shook up that state’s Medicaid program a few years back with a plan that some thought was rationing. He is also the person I wrote about back in June under [...]
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With Halloween right around the corner, this is the season for scary things. One of the scariest things I’ve see recently appeared on the pages of the Wall Street Journal. It had to do with the ability of Congress to predict the cost of health care entitlement programs. In an opinion piece entitled Health Costs [...]
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The Galen Institute today released new survey results showing overwhelming opposition to the individual mandate and other key components of health reform legislation Congress is considering. “These findings illustrate strong opposition to fundamental aspects of the bills moving through Congress,” said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner. “People don’t want to be forced to buy insurance [...]
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We all know that innovations that do not add value, are really not innovations after all. With that in mind, a report was issued earlier this week by the Iowa Committee for Value in Healthcare. It outlined five key principles that its members agree make for high-value, fiscally responsible health care. Its members think Congress [...]
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What if you could not find the price for anything at the grocery store, even the most basic items? What if the check-out clerk offered to mail you a bill, but could not tell you what your total amount would be? That is the question being asked by Regence, the largest health insurer in the [...]
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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has announced its latest round of what it calls a preliminary analysis of the Senate Finance Committee Chairman’s mark for the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009. This analysis has been much anticipated as it incorporates the amendments that have been adopted to date by the Senate Finance Committee. The [...]
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There has been a lot of news coverage this week over the showdown on the Senate Finance Committee over whether to include a public option in the healthcare reform bill. We all now know that after hours of debate two Democratic amendments to add the public option were defeated. What the press has not been [...]
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The public is proving to be a fickle bunch when it comes to their support for healthcare reform. The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows the public support for health reform ended its summer slide, reversed course and moved modestly upwards in September. The survey showed that fifty-seven percent of Americans now believe that tackling [...]
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America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), last week, released a study that supports the position often taken in this blog. That is that innovations that lead to better and lower cost medical care come from private sector initiatives. AHIP released a study showing that Medicare Advantage enrollees spent fewer days in a hospital, were subject to [...]
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$774 billion – the estimated credits and subsidies to be provided through the insurance exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers. $215 billion – the revenues expected from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans. $20 billion – the estimated penalty payments made [...]
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