The Health Care Blog – Page 1016 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

TECH: Interview with Newt Gingrich

Mar 1, 2008

The controversial and not-shy-with-his-opinions former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has been very active in recent years promoting the automation of health records and EMRs. But he’s never been a great pains to stress how that would get done from a policy perspective.

I was glad to get a few minute with him because I was able to get straight to that question. And on that topic it appears that Newt has become a fan of government mandates and directed government spending. I think you’ll find this podcast fascinating, although it’s short.

TECH: Finishing up HIMSS!

Mar 1, 2008

HIMSS was an intense experience this year. Not only did I present on Health 2.0 at CHIME and at the Cisco Community for Connected Health, but I met lots of old friends and made some new ones at the ICW, HISTalk, Allscripts and Google parties, as well as seeing an almost complete reunion of the old i-Beacon gang. (Bringing back memories of the famous 2001 New Orleans HIMSS beigner 2am powdered sugar fight!)

I also got up very early to attend a breakfast organized by the good people at Allscripts for Newt Gingrich and 50 of his closet friends, and was lucky enough to get 5 minutes to talk with him…..and those of you who think I’m an un-repenting Marxist will be amazed that I agree with him on the issue of mandating and payment for ePrescribing and EMRs! (Although I suspect several of my free market friends do not!)

Unfortunately my experience getting home from HIMSS was way less fun, and I arrived home way later than expected (although I narrowly avoided spending the night on the floor of the Miami airport and actually had a nice room in a rather trendy airport hotel called the Preston in Nashville). And of course by the time I got home I as deeply underwater in Health 2.0 Conference related activities.

So I’m playing catch up and the next several posts will be the remaining podcasts from HIMSS. They’re well well worth listening to.

Health 2.0 Conference — the icyou videos

Mar 1, 2008

While we gear up for the conference on Monday and Tuesday, icyou has put all the September videos from the Health 2.0 San Francisco Conference up in one place!

What’s wrong with individual health insurance mandates by Claudia Chaufan

Feb 29, 2008• 47

Individual health insurance mandates have lately been hailed as the solution to the health care crisis in America. Mandates to buy health insurance have been included in legislative proposals at the state level – for instance, by Gov. Schwarzenegger and Speaker Nunez, in their “Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act”, or at the federal level, by Hillary Clinton in her “American Health Choice Plan”. Can mandates achieve universal access to health care and control rising costs of medical care? This article explains why they can’t.

Lately, legislation including a universal mandate – a legal obligation that everybody purchase a health insurance policy – has been hailed as the solution to the health care crisis in America. At the state level, mandates have been included, for instance, in Gov. Schwarzenegger and Speaker Nunez’s “Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act”, and at the federal level, by Hillary Clinton in her “American Health Choice Plan”. Yet many of us remain skeptical. Why? After all, if everybody is forced to buy a health insurance plan – maybe with a subsidy if you are “poor enough” – would this not resolve the problem of uninsurance? Maybe so. But the real question is: would mandating universal health insurance guarantee universal access to medical care? And the short answer is no.

Healthcare and The Gathering Storm – Brian Klepper

Feb 29, 2008• 7

Here are two very interesting and frightening charts that my good friend Warren Brennan, the CEO of SMA Informatics in Richmond, passed along this AM, with this question, aimed at the CFOs of hospitals and other health care organizations:

What do these mean for bad debt and for the health care sector’s future financial performance?

Clinton v. Obama on Healthcare, by Bob Laszewski

Feb 27, 2008• 8

This is a repost of an original that addresses Hillary Clinton’s claim, repeated in last week’s Texas debate, that only her health plan accomplishes universal coverage because it has a individual mandate and Barak Obama’s does not. Senator Clinton goes so far as to say she would garnish wages to enforce her mandate that everyone buy health insurance. Hillary Clinton has gone on the attack in recent days criticizing Barack Obama’s health care plan. She charges that his plan would not cover everyone and hers would.

Is she right?

Senator Clinton has an individual mandate in her plan. That means
that everyone would be required to purchase coverage or suffer a
penalty she hasn’t defined. Senator Obama does not have an individual
mandate in his plan although he would require all children to be
covered. Both candidates would require employers to cover their
employees.

An Analysis of Senator Hillary Clinton’s Health Plan Proposal by Robert Laszewski

Feb 27, 2008• 4

This is nothing like the Clinton Health Plan from 1993.

Senator Clinton has so far been running a smart campaign for President — at least on the policy side — and her health care reform strategy is no exception. She waited until after all of the leading Democratic, and most Republican, candidates had announced their plans and then stuck her plan right in the ideological middle of where her Democratic opponents put theirs. It also looks a great deal like a bipartisan plan enacted in Massachusetts and a bipartisan compromise in the works in California. So on the day it was released, it was correctly identified as being relatively centrist.

TECH: Fred Trotter meets Dr. Peel

Feb 27, 2008

I was on my way to see Deborah Peel’s talk yesterday when I was waylaid by a previous engagement that I’d mischeduled in my calendar. Given I had 4 people waiting for me I couldn’t break it but I was very disappointed to not be there.

Fred Trotter was there and had some of his questions answered. Unfortunately he didn’t ask the ones that I am getting so worked up about.

Now I’m off to see Newt Gingrich. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to ask him about his views on it. (And for the record the Google party was fabulous!)

TECH/PODCAST: ICW’s Jeremy Coote

Feb 26, 2008

ICW is a German-based consumer facing record company, that is dominant in Germany and several Eastern European countires. Over here they decided that their skills lie in integrating data from disparate systems, very much a Health 2.0 trend (which is why they’re a Health 2.0 Conference sponsor).

They also announced a major open source initiative with Agfa and Sun this morning–which will hopefully give a boost to open source in health care (which thus far has been a somewhat small and lonely community)

I spoke to ICW America CEO Jeremy Coote today.

PODCAST/TECH: The new Virtual Palomar West

Feb 26, 2008

My first interview at HIMSS is with Orlando Portale, CIO and Michael Covert, CEO of Palomar Pomerado Health in the San Diego area. They’re planning a new hospital and are working with Cisco and have put together a fun video about their new Virtual Palomar West in Second Life. They both had some really interesting things to say about how to build a large new hospital and how to plan for its use for a long, long time ahead. Here’s the interview.

(FD, Orlando and I are both on the advisory board for HIMSS Community for Connected Health, sponsored by Cisco, and I have done consulting work for Cisco in the past).