THCB

Categories

Above the Fold

Massachusetts Health Care Reform : The Canary in the Coal Mine

• 5

By MAGGIE MAHAR

Advocates for health care reform have been keeping an eye on Massachusetts, hopeful that its new health reform law will serve as a pilot program for the nation.

I’m much less hopeful than I was two days ago.

Yesterday I attended the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Eighth Annual Leadership Forum where I was one of four speakers. This year, the Society (which owns The New England Journal of Medicine)  focused on the cost of health care –with a special emphasis on funding universal coverage in Massachusetts. The new was not good. While the citizens of   Massachusetts believe that everyone has a right to health care (when polled 92% say “yes”), no one wants to pay for universal coverage.   When asked “if the only way to make sure that everyone can get the health care services they need is to have a substantial increase in taxes [should we do it] 55% said “no.”

One speaker at the forum recalled a man who explained why taxpayers shouldn’t have to pick up the bill: “The government should pay for it.” (He didn’t disclose who he thinks “the government” is. )Continue reading…

Food Porn: Hardees and the 920 Calorie Burrito – Pat Salber

• 31

ALeqM5jNgImy14J9JPP6T6BSvclEMyhaew.jpgPerhaps
the folks over at Hardee’s fast food haven’t heard the country is in
the midst of an obesity epidemic.  They have just unveiled a new
breakfast offering, the Country Breakfast burrito.  It consists of a
two egg omelet filled with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese,
hash browns and sausage gravy.  Surrounding this protein load is a
flour tortilla.  The burrito weighs in at 920 calories.  That’s right,
920 calories, about half of what you should ingest in a day.  This
little baby also has 60 grams of fat.  All those calories and all that
fat will only set you back $2.69.

According to a story by the Associated Press,
Brad Haley, Hardees’ marketing chief, says that the burrito offers the
sort of big breakfast item normally found in sit-down restaurants with
an added advantage.  “It makes this big country breakfast portable,” he
said.

Continue reading…

Esther Dyson on Health 2.0

I hadn’t heard this quote from Esther Dyson describing Health 2.0 before. She puts it very well.

What we heard today was to me something like the mobile phone system;
it kind of snuck in quietly. It didn’t say it was going to replace the
landline phones. It just appeared.

HEALTH 2.0: Sssh. It’s a secret!

Pre-registration for the next Health 2.0 conference is now open. The exact location and date for this March event must remain a closely-guarded state secret for now, but expect an official announcement from the Health 2.o team soon. September’s conference sold out weeks before the event, so if you want the best odds of obtaining a pass, you probably should take the two minutes it takes to go sign up. If you attended the September 20th event in San Francisco, all you need do is email in**@********on.com with "I want to come to the next one" in the body of your email. Meanwhile, if you missed the September event in San Francisco, we will shortly be making an 8 DVD box with highlights of the Health 2.0 User-Generated Healthcare conference available for sale. Just send us an email with "I want the DVD in your subject line."  We will provide details on pricing and shipping options when copies are available to ship.

 

Is BC/BS Practicing Medicine? By Gregory Paweleski

• 13

I’ve observed the incessant complaints on various cancer blogs and discussion boards about BC/BS "denial of coverage" on the backs of injured and diseased human beings during their fight with the great crab.

In one case, the patient was denied a CT scan. As the poster said, "because BC/BS is practicing medicine and deciding that such a thing is not medically necessary." Without the CT scan, there was no way for the doctor to definitively tell if a swollen leg is cancer related or a blood clot. The physician couldn’t make a diagnosis based on the best available technique to make that diagnosis.

Another poster presented the case that BC/BS used to cover Pet Scans. Unfortunately, some study came out stating that Pet Scans aren’t more effective than CT Scans to find colon cancer. With that one study, BC/BS had decided not to cover the Pet Scan, even against the physician protest.

Continue reading…

HEALTH2.0: Vertical Search–The only way is up?

• 7

Forrester data in iHealthbeat:

Seventy percent of online consumers surveyed said they have used a Web-based search engine to find health-related information, but just 7% of online consumers surveyed said they have used a health-specific search engine, according to a survey by Forrester Research

That means that the vertical search guys have had 10% of the market in users although surely much less than 10% of the market in traffic. You can see why with the huge CPM rates for health care advertising this is indeed an interesting market for vertical search crowd like Healia, Healthline, Microsoft/Medstory, Kosmix, Praxeon et al. (Yes, I’m using those 5 as examples as they were on the panel at Health2.0 and I am just reviewing the DVD). But there are others too, like Medgle.

So will they gain any traction from this? Or will the big three (or really the big one) simply take their share back with their new tech releases…

POLICY: Friday quiz–A tale of two professors

• 1

I’ve been told that I make “vicious ad hominem attacks” about people I disagree with on matters of substance. So I thought it would be fun to show what some other luminaries say. See if you can guess who wrote this and who they’re talking about—yes both in the same long article and both people with similar roles and titles:

XXX XXX is a professor at XXXX Business School and the thought leader on consumer driven health care in the United States. XXX is the author or editor of three books that laid out the intellectual foundation for the consumer empowerment movement: (book titles redacted). XXX is a frequent and popular lecturer on all aspects of health care reform, and serves on the Boards of some of the most innovative health care companies in America.

Continue reading…

HEALTH PLANS: Health Plans Behaving Badly

• 5

I spent Monday lecturing a bunch of health plans about their bad behavior and how that had to change or they’d eventually be put out of business. So how might that not play out? Here’s my best guess up at Spot-on. It’s called Health Plans Behaving Badly.

It’s not been too pretty a picture for America’s health insurers lately. Sure they’re still turning decent profits, but for the past two years their stocks have barely been matching the S&P 500 Index. What went wrong? Well, you can blame Wall Street. The Street is concerned with two things. Money now and money later.

Since 2001 the big health plans have managed to increase the percentage they keep of fast-growing health care premiums (which have been going up at 3 to 4 times the rate of inflation), a number known to stock analysts as the as the MLR. It used to be that for most big insurers roughly 82-87% of premiums went out the door to pay for actual doctors, hospitals, drugs et al. Now the MLR is generally below 80%, and in some cases below 75% meaning less money’s out the door and more is on the bottom line of the health plans.

But the health insurer party that’s been going on for most of this decade may be coming to an end. But perhaps being busted by the cops and being told to tidy the house might be the best thing that ever happened to the insurers. Let me explain.

Read the rest and come back here to comment as ever.

Aspen Report 3 – Removing the Blinders: Dr. Kelman’s Wonderful Contribution, Brian Klepper

• 2

One
of the most fascinating and moving experiences at the Aspen Health
Forum – Given the quality of the content there, this is saying
something. The audience was rapt – was a talk by Neen Hunt, Executive
Director of the Lasker Foundation.
Each year this organization bestows a hugely prestigious prize to
individuals who have made significant contributions to scientific
medicine, clinical medicine and public service.

Dr. Hunt’s talk
focused on combating the geeky stereotypes that often are associated
with people with dedicated passions, and on conveying their broad
humanity. Her vehicle was a character portrait of Dr. Charles D.
Kelman, an ophthalmologist practicing in Manhattan during the latter
half of the 1900s, who in an incredibly bold stroke, blew past
convention, inciting the wrath of those tied to the established order,
and revolutionized the way that cataract surgeries are performed.

Continue reading…

assetto corsa mods