As opposition to a Medicare-like public health plan option grows, there has been a lot of talk about the compromise idea of creating not-for-profit health insurance cooperatives
that would compete on a level playing field with existing private
insurers. The reasoning goes they would keep the existing insurers
"honest" by introducing a new element of competition.That's a great idea.And it was a great idea 60 years ago when the first Blue Cross plans were established.
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For those of you using certain versions of Internet Explorer, we’re having some significant problems in the last day or so on THCB getting things like the right hand margins to appear, getting videos to appear and play properly, etc. (Issue seems to be limited to I.E. 8.) For now, these appear to be resisting the easy fix, BUT the good news is that everything is working fine in FireFox. So to those of you having trouble, can we suggest you use FireFox for the moment to view THCB and we hope to have regular service resumed soon.
A Special Reform Edition of Health Wonk Review
by BRIAN KLEPPER
Over at Managed Care Matters, the always thoughtful and energetic Joe Paduda has, once again, done us all a service. Tasked with hosting this edition of Health Wonk Review, he has assembled a great range of pieces on the current reform process, which make for enlightening, entertaining and sober reading. This one is useful, provocative and very educational. Check it out!
Gawande Nails It on Healthcare Costs
I just finished reading Atul Gawande’s June 1st New Yorker piece – it’s the Talk of the Health Policy Town – on healthcare’s “Cost Conundrum.” Like most of Atul’s work, the article is lyrical, powerful, insightful, and correct.
As you’ve probably heard, Gawande profiles the town of McAllen, Texas, whose healthcare costs are nearly double the national average. He swats away the usual explanations (our patients are sicker, more obese, more addicted, more Mexican; our lawyers are nastier; our quality is better…) to unblinkingly zoom in on the real culprit: a culture in which providers’ greed trumps the patients’ interests. He contrasts McAllen’s healthcare culture with that of El Paso, just 800 miles up the border, a town with similar demographics but whose healthcare costs are exactly half as high. He also describes the Mayo Clinic, which manages to deliver the best healthcare in the country, perhaps the world, at a fraction of McAllen’s costs.
His main point is that policymakers need to focus less on who pays (i.e., should there be a “public plan”?) and more on creating physician-led accountable entities that manage the dollars and possess the wherewithal and incentives to make rational choices about how to organize care – the ratio of primary care docs to specialists, the number of MRI scanners, the algorithm for the workup of chest pain or gallstones. Atul understands that we can’t snap our fingers and change culture, but that culture will change when structure and incentives are lined up correctly.Continue reading…
Commentology: The President’s Letter to Kennedy and Baucus
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press SecretaryFor Immediate ReleaseJune 3, 2009
Dear Senator Kennedy and Senator Baucus:
The meeting that we held today was very productive and I want to commend you for your leadership — and the hard work your Committees are doing on health care reform, one of the most urgent and important challenges confronting us as a Nation.
In 2009, health care reform is not a luxury. It's a necessity we cannot defer. Soaring health care costs make our current course unsustainable. It is unsustainable for our families, whose spiraling premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are pushing them into bankruptcy and forcing them to go without the checkups and prescriptions they need. It is unsustainable for businesses, forcing more and more of them to choose between keeping their doors open or covering their workers. And the ever-increasing cost of Medicare and Medicaid are among the main drivers of enormous budget deficits that are threatening our economic future.
Alex Drane — Engage with Grace
Alex Drane is at AHIP in San Diego and she’s talking not about Eliza, or health plans, but is talking about Engage with Grace. It’s a wonderful interview, although Alex knows that associating end of life care with reducing costs makes me very nervous. BUT the point is, talk about it, give people the tools to make the choice. And people’s choices will as she says dovetail in general with less rather than more care at the end-of-life. And if they want more rather than less, that’s fine—so long as it’s a purposeful decision.
Listen to Alex describe the movement, and what the topic’s meant to her family. And then visit the web site at Engagewithgrace.org.
Click here to watch the interview.
Launch! LiveStrong.com Calorie Tracker
LiveStrong is the second in our series of companies that presented at Launch! at the Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference in Boston in April. With the help of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, LiveStrong.com has created a way of setting goals and tracking calories on the go. And yes it’s new (which is the point of Launch!). Watch the short video below to get an idea and investigate further over at LiveStrong.com
HIT Adoption – Alignment & Simplification
David Hartzband is a Lecturer in Engineering
Systems at MIT, teaching courses in large-scale software systems and Director of Technology Research at the RCHN Community
Health Foundation. In his role at the Foundation, Dr. Hartzband spearheads the
organization’s continued evaluation, assessment and findings
dissemination related to health information technology.
As
if we didn't know already, most of the leadership of Health and Human
Services has now weighed in on the importance of health information
technology (HIT) in realizing goals for health care improvement and
reform. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a House Ways and means
Committee hearing on May 6th that “health IT is critical
to health reform”. To her credit, she also said that “just shifting
our paperwork to computers won't work, unless we make sure they can
talk to each other.” We also know that substantial amounts of money
will be available through the ARRA and other sources for acquisition
of electronic heath care records systems (EHR) as well as incentives
to Medicare and Medicaid providers for meaningful use of such systems.
Those of us who have worked in HIT, for even short amounts of time,
realize that there is a step missing in this progression: acquisition,—–,
meaningful use. That missing step is the adoption of technology, and
adoption is considerably more difficult than either of these other steps.
Cool Technology of the Week
This week’s Cool Technology is not about a product, but a concept.
I’ve had numerous companies (more than 5) approach me in the last 90 days with a product in development that I’ll call “Image Exchange in the Cloud”.
One of the great challenges we have in healthcare is that radiology/cardiology/GI/pulmonary/Ob-Gyn images are not easily sharable between organizations. Although DICOM is a generally accepted standard, there is not an easy to use health information exchange in most communities to send DICOM data from place to place.
The Mission 2 End Diabetes
CHRISTUS St. Frances Cabrini Hospital is proud to present its Mission
to End Diabetes contest. When you have a moment, hop over to
mission2enddiabetes.org and have a look at the innovative contest
they've organized. You can send in your ingenious ideas in one of the
following four areas: (1). Improved ways to evaluate diabetes, (2)
More simplified ways to diagnose diabetes, (3.) Better treatment
options for diabetes, (4.) Any combinations of the above.
You'll also be able to read other people's questions and blogs and
then comment on them in the Discussion section of the website. Top
winner will receive a $20,000.00 cash prize and the possible
implementation of their idea with CHRISTUS St. Frances Cabrini.
Here is the official contest information:
The CHRISTUS Heritage:
In 1999, two historic Catholic charities became one, forming CHRISTUS
Health (facility map) and creating a unique purpose in the modern
health care market — to take better care of people. Ranked among the
top 10 Catholic health systems in the United States by size, the
CHRISTUS Health system includes more than 40 hospitals and facilities
in six American states and Mexico, with assets of more than $4.1
billion.
The Mission:
Today, we at CHRISTUS St. Frances Cabrini Hospital have a new purpose
— a mission to end diabetes. However, no one can do this alone, and so
we are inviting you to work with us on this special mission. CHRISTUS
St. Frances Cabrini Hospital is holding an international contest and
inviting inventors, entrepreneurs, and researchers from around the
world to participate. The rules are simple: Develop and submit a
proposal for a program that will aid in the evaluation, diagnosis and
treatment of diabetes in a rural area such as central Louisiana. The
program must be able to track results and outcomes within a budget of
$200,000.00.
The Prizes:
The first place winner(s) will be awarded a cash prize of $20,000 The
second place winner will receive a cash prize of $15,000 and the third
place winner will win a cash prize of $5,000.
For more info, go to mission2enddiabetes.org
