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HEALTH PLANS: Glasscock names female successor at Wellpoint

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Larry Glasscock at Wellpoint is stepping down this summer and has named a woman, Angela Braly, as his successor. Braly, 45, is an executive vice president, with responsibility for WellPoint’s Medicare claims processing business, federal employees’ health benefits business, and public policy development, among other areas.

Is this the first major health care company with a female CEO? It’ll certainly be the biggest US Corporation with one. At any rate, I wonder if we’ll start to see some slightly “gentler” behavior from the for-profit Blues conglomerate?

As for Glasscock? Well he probably never imagined quite how well he’d do when he got into health care 10 years or so ago. Or how little he’d get criticized for the things his company’s done!

BLOGS: What’s a Blog?

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The Boston Globe reports that other executives in town are
less than thrilled with Beth Israel Deconess CEO Paul Levy’s new blog, Running
a Hospital. Levy has been blogging on industry issues for the past few months,
offering a rare glimpse at the decision-making process inside a major teaching hospital, posting on topics ranging from the size of his own salary ("Do I get paid too much?") to negotiations with labor organizers.

Recently, he took the unusual step of posting data Beth Israel’s monthly hospital acquired infection rates on his site and publicly
challenged his competitors at Mass General to do the same. Under Massachusetts law, hospitals are not yet required to make the information public – and most have hesitated to do so, fearing negative publicity. 

Picking up from the Globe’s report:

"There are some things that Boston hospital executives generally believe are
best kept quiet. Gripes about competitors are one. The rates of
hospital-acquired infections among patients are another, at least at this
point. Then came Paul Levy’s blog. In his blog, Levy also has needled Partners HealthCare, the parent
organization of Mass. General and Brigham and Women’s, about their formidable
market share of patients, saying they get paid more from insurers because of
their size." 

Partner’s CEO Dr. Peter Slavin responds in an interview on White Coat Notes, the Globe’s new health care blog, with the CEO’s PR department-blessed version of "Oh yeah, buddy? You and your ‘blog’ want to step outside?"

"There are at least two ways to compete in health care, provide great
care, do great research and excel at teaching — that’s the way we
choose to do it," Slavin said. "The other way is to criticize one’s
competitors. That’s not the method we choose to employ."

Indeed!! 

BLOGS: A very big thank you

Finally before I go off to get bathed in the glow/spittle of Steve Balmer this a.m, a huge thanks to Eric Novack, Michael Millenson and Maggie Mahar for their just excellent guest posting while I was away. And also thanks to John Irvine for keeping the buses running on time here at THCB.

I note that the NY Times today does not agree with Maggie about the HPV vaccine Gardasil. But on reading it last night I thought that Maggie’s piece and the very intelligent comments were some of the best uses of blogging that I’ve seen anywhere.

POLICY: Perry Unhappy

Quote_leftGov_perry_v2When a company comes to me and says we have a cure for cancer, for me
not to
say, ‘Please come into my office and let’s hear your story for
the people of the state of Texas, for young ladies who are dying of
cancer,’ would be the height of irresponsibility. Whether
or not they contributed to my campaign, I would suggest to you, are
some of those weeds that we are trying to cut our way through. Quote_right_1

Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) expresses anger over widespread criticism of the executive order he issued earlier this month requiring that all girls entering the sixth grade in the state receive Merck’s new HPV vaccine. (Houston Chronicle). See Maggie Mahar:  "Merck’s miracle vaccine: What is this story really about?"

POLICY: Free Market Healthcare – Fact or Fiction?By Eric Novack

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THCB thanks guest poster Dr. Eric Novack for a great series of posts this week on the big issues facing the health care system.  Together with Mike Millenson and Maggie Mahar, Eric did a fantastic job of filling in for Matthew.  If you’d like to hear more from Eric, go have a listen to the Eric Novack show, which airs every weekend on KKNT 960 AM in Phoenix. Stay tuned for more from Eric in the weeks to come …

This week, in Matthew’s absence, we have debunked the low overhead of Medicare and engaged in an ongoing discussion about whether a society based upon freedoms ought to be able to compel its citizens to participate in government programs.  I am somewhat surprised to find few people have been tackling the ‘opt-out’ provision of my previous post.  My sense is that it is tough to argue on paper (electronic, of course) that the government can force everyone to join in, with no option of getting out.  Interestingly, this is at the heart of so many discussions about public education, where a growing segment of the population is demanding more choices, not fewer, for their children.

An issue we have tackled before, but is worth doing again, given the repeated references in the comments sections, relates to another of the great myths of American health care:  our ‘free market’ system. 

Fact: $2 trillion in total health care spending in 2006 Fact: direct government payments for Medicare and Medicaid in 2006 accounted for about $700 billion in 2006  Fact:  government spending on VA health care in 2006 exceeded $31 billion Fact: Department of Defense spending on healthcare in 2005 was $37 billion, though the number now is about 8% of the total defense budget for 2007 Fact:  The value of the ‘tax exclusion’ for employer sponsored benefits was nearly $190 billion in 2004 Fact: private insurers peg their reimbursement—no matter how much they would claim to the contrary—to the medicare fee schedule

And we have a ‘free-market’ healthcare system?  Like the editorial I posted previously says, “the least we can ask for is an honest comparison” of the different options for reform.

TECH: Googling the wrong location By John Irvine

There’s been a lot of debate recently about Google’s effectiveness as a tool for people looking forDuke_medical_center
accurate health care information. But what about people who use the search engine in emergencies?

Recently, an employee at Duke Medical Center discovered that the indexing technology that Google Maps uses is helpfully picking up incorrect telephone numbers and displaying them along with the map showing the hospital’s location.

That error was causing a great deal of confusion. Nothing life threatening apparently – just a lot of wrong numbers.   

… the "numbers lead to particular doctor’s offices, and
they are being swamped with calls from people trying to reach the main
medical center." Bart [ the employee concerned] also said that he was told to update his business
listing, which he did but unfortunately the "other wrong ones still
remain" incorrect.

It would be easy to make too much of a story like this. I tend to think that making mistakes is an inevitable part of the process of getting things right. So I’m inclined to give Google the benefit of the doubt. But the incident certainly does raise a number of questions: is this a problem that is limited to Duke Medical Center?  How difficult is it for Google to correct mistakes like this once they are discovered? If I ran a hospital – or even a doctor’s office – I think I’d want to know the answers to both of these questions.

UPDATE: The answer to question No. 2 is apparently fairly quickly. As of this morning, Google seems to have fixed the error.

PHARMA: Merck’s Miracle Vaccine –What Is This Story Really About? By Maggie Mahar

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GardasilYesterday, Merck announced that it is no longer going to try to persuade states to make its new $360 cervical cancer vaccine mandatory for all pre-teens. (At least, not publicly). The company wouldn’t divulge how much it has spent, to date, on its lobbying campaign.

Virtually everyone has heard about “Gardasil.” Planned Parenthood backs it. Women in Government extols its virtues. (Both organizations receive significant contributions from Merck). Not long ago, a glowing New York Times editorial congratulated Texas governor Rick Perry for mandating “A Vaccine To  Save Women’s Lives.”( So far as I know, Merck makes no contributions to The New York Times, but Perry’s former chief of staff is a Merck lobbyist.) At this point, twenty states have drafted plans to follow Perry’s example

Last summer, I wrote about the vaccine on American Prospect Online. At the time, I tried to make two points. First, while Merck’s vaccine could cost U.S. patients, insurers and state governments billions of dollars, it will not be saving millions of lives—because, in the countries where it will be available, there are not millions of lives to be saved.

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