Category: Health Tech

Grand Rounds

Feb 10, 2009• 7

By Matthew Holt

Welcome to Grand Rounds. It's been quite some time
since THCB hosted the medical blogosphere's major compendium. So sit
back and enjoy a stroll through the gardens of medical and health care
obsession.

It's still a fresh political season, so we start with the wonks:

At TNR's The Treatment blog, Jonathan Cohn gets a top administration official to confirm
that health care will be a "central focus" of the budget proposal Obama
submits in a few weeks, signaling a major commitment to reform even
with Tom Daschle gone. He also runs down some possible successors to
Daschle and decides Howard Dean won't be the man, even though he'd do a great job.

Elsewhere on The Treatment, Harold Pollack says it's bad enough the U.S. opposes successful harm reduction strategies for drug addiction at home. Why do we have to use our clout to discourage other countries, too?

At Health Business Blog David Williams thinks that universal coverage
is a worthy goal, but says that if we get there by enrolling everyone in existing
public and private insurance schemes and maintaining existing levels of
utilization we’ll be doomed.

Jon Cohn: Obsessed with baseball and a hopeless optimist

Feb 9, 2009• 7

By Matthew Holt

Jon thinks that Baseball Teaches Us (something) About Health Care Reform. Replace the star player with a bunch of utility infielders, and we’ll still win the pennant. Don’t worry Jon, Daschle isn’t the only one who came in with high hopes and didn’t make it through the week. So long Luiz Felipe!

But more importantly, unity (for the bailout) is a bust already, less than two full weeks into the Obama Administration with only 3 Republican Senators prepared to buck Rush Limbaugh, and then at a pretty big cost to the President and common sense. As Krugman pointed out today, bipartisanship is a crock, with the Republicans telling Obama to go whistle despite his bail-out package being less in total and way less in degree than a centrist Democrat would want. He left in all those tax cuts to please Republicans and they dissed it anyway.

So what would the Republicans do if serious health reform came up for discussion? I think I know! And if Obama starts with an already watered-down plan, it’ll just get more watered down.

A Question For You Privacy Wonks Out There

Feb 3, 2009• 5

By Matthew Holt

When I read a headline like Privacy advocates hail stimulus bills I immediately wonder which privacy advocates. If it’s Deborah Peel I shudder, as her aim appears to be to shut down any system of electronic health data exchange. But if it’s Deven McGraw, from the Center for Democracy and Technology, I’m pretty encouraged as she (and her organization) seem to be taking the militant moderate path on privacy—putting patients in control of their data but encouraging the benefits of electronic records.

So I’m a little puzzled that they both like the privacy aspects of the stimulus package. Can someone who’s read the bill let us know what’s in there, and why they both like it while providers, payers and pharmacy chains hate it?

CODA: Of course who cares about the patients? Most importantly physicians’ privacy will now be safeguarded—even though it’s only their privacy about what we the taxpayer are giving them as contractors that Consumers Checkbook wanted to violate. I can just see Haliburton’s lawyers ready to cite this one.

Univita buys Enurgi (with a little explanation about the future of long-term care…)

Feb 3, 2009• 2

By Matthew Holt

Univita is a new play from a strong executive team led by former Anthem CEO Ben Lytle. Post Anthem, Lytle and his son Hugh founded Axia, a wellness company, and sold it to DM industry giant (albeit a small giant among dwarves), Healthways.

Now they’ve bought Enurgi which has established a platform for caregivers to manage in-home care over the web. (FD, Enurgi was founded by my friend Chiara Bell). Scraped straight from Univita’s website, here’s what they say they’re going to do:

Cats & dogs: Can we find unity on health care IT change?

Jan 22, 2009• 7

By Matthew Holt

Those of you paying attention for the past few days might have noticed on the one hand a sense of optimism and unity as Barrack H. Obama, somewhat somberly, began his presidency.

Meanwhile, over the past few weeks the fur has been flying among the electrons on THCB while some very knowledgeable and opinionated health care wonks and geeks have been battling it out about what exactly we should be doing in terms of federal health care IT spending.

An Interview with Matthew Holt

Jan 19, 2009• 7

By RICHARD REECE
With an Introduction by Brian Klepper

"Here is a treat for regular readers of THCB and, certainly, for everyone who has come to know Matthew. Below, the erudite retired Pathologist, fierce physician advocate, health care chronicler and interviewer, and lover of bad puns, Dick Reece, interviews Matthew, Founder of The Health Care Blog and, with his partner Indu Subaiya, Co-Founder of the Health 2.0 conferences.

As you’ll see below, their exchange is breezy and casual but concise, Dick probing for Matthew’s formative academic influences and Matthew playing it pretty straight, resisting his always present wise-acre gene. It’s actually quite nicely handled on both sides.

Matthew is a person of encyclopedic technical range, with a boundless appetite for information of all types and an irresistible flair for the hilarious. He has a refined sensibility for how things do and might work in the world, and a commitment to avoid the easy path in favor of trying to do things that will positively matter. He is, simply, a shining star. Enjoy."- Brian Klepper

Poizner: talks tough, wimps out WITH UPDATE

Jan 7, 2009• 16

By Matthew Holt

Previously in the long running retroactive insurance cancellation story I’d accused Steve Poizner (yes, the only Republican I’ve ever voted for and) California state insurance commissioner of being a bit soft. Now he really needs calling out.

Saint Lisa Girion reports in the LA Times today that to make up for cancelling 678 policies, Blue Shield, yes the warm cuddly pro-universal care loving non-profit insurer that’s not Wellpoint, has to reinstate them. Which means they have to reinstate the policies and pay the bills that they’d previously decided not to pay.

Now Blue Shield has been the most aggressive of all the insurers in the state in claiming that it had the right to retroactively cancel policies. Most of the others settled ages before. Meanwhile Poizner last year said this about Blue Shield:

Not exactly health care, but follow the money…

Jan 5, 2009• 3

By Matthew Holt

Michael Lewis has returned from writing about Jim Clark, technology, baseball and football to his first
topic; finance. (Liars Poker is still the best book about Wall Street ever) His two part piece with hedge fund manager David Einhorn this weekend in the NY Times is one of the best things I’ve seen on the current financial crisis and what to do about it.

It’s called The End of the Financial World as We Know It and How to Repair a Broken Financial World. (I recommend reading them both straight through). And yes, Lewis wants more transparency and more regulation.

Paul Krugman estimated last month that the share of GDP going to the financial sector increased from 5% of GDP to 8% of GDP over the past 30 years or so. What did exactly we get for the extra 3% of the economy that was extracted by Wall Street? The answer is pretty evident. And of course lots of other sectors of society, generally inhabited by people earning significantly less money, have suffered pretty directly as a result.

Of course, there’s another sector of the economy that’s increased its share of the GDP by an even greater amount in roughly the same time period (from about 9% to about 17%). No prizes for guessing which one.

Anyone care to justify what value that sector has provided?

Critical of Critical

Dec 31, 2008• 49

By Matthew Holt

Like legions of other wonks when I discovered that Tom Daschle was going to be Obama’s point guy on health care, I sent off for a copy of his book Critical. It’s a fast and easy read, but in its examination of the problem it doesn’t add much to superior books on what’s wrong with health care (much of the first section reads like an undergrad’s attempt to summarize Jonathan Cohn’s Sick) and there are some pretty weak logic flows and basic editing throughout (he refers to the book Uninsured in America on p155 as though it’s already been introduced before it actually gets introduced on p161). But ignoring all that, what does Daschle suggest we actually do?

First, he promotes himself as a scholar of failed attempts at health reform past, and of course a witness to the most recent attempt.

Merry Christmas & Happy Hols

Dec 25, 2008• 4

By Matthew Holt

Thanks for reading THCB this year. Thanks to to all the authors who we’ve featured and thanks to John and Sarah for keeping the train on the tracks. And thanks to all who commented and made THCB a great place for educated debate about health care issues.

We’ll be posting a little over the next week with some forecasts for 2009–-which is shaping up to be an interesting year in health policy at least. And there’ll be a new look for THCB early in 2009 too.

But for now enjoy the holiday!

I’m in Tahoe where there was 2 foot of powder last night, which I’ll be heading out to enjoy on my snowboard soon!