Opinions are flying. Opinionators with a plan to fix healthcare in America are suddenly as common as waiters with a script in Santa Monica. Few are worth a second glance. They fall into the “that’ll never pass” pile or the “that’ll never work” pile.
So why should we pay any attention to Christopher Ruddy’s idea? Because he’s a prominent conservative, the CEO of Newsmax, and a long-time friend and ally of Trump—and he is advocating for at least a “lite” version of universal coverage.
Most everyone is talking about Healthcare lately and I just can’t take it anymore and had to send out a primer, because there is so much bad information being floated. I don’t like the ACA replacement because the idea is still based on the premise that you can give-away insurance as an entitlement program. The problem is that you can’t “give-away” insurance, it’s an oxymoron, if there is no skin in the game for the insured they’ll never care.
I’m an insurance guy and Trump voter. I only point this because I want you to know that my healthcare recommendation is heartfelt and I offer it with no real bias other than offering my experience and expertise on the matter. My idea is just an independent thought and many Republicans, Libertarians and Democrats would hate it, but I think Trump (the Independent) would love it. And I feel it’s the only way for Trump to try and “solve” the healthcare problems in the U.S. and keep his commitment that “all” would be covered.
Imagine that a drug company released a “study” that claimed to find that if all 75 million Americans with high blood pressure took the drug company’s hypertension drug the nation’s annual medical expenditures would drop by $20 billion. Imagine as well that the “study” failed to take into account the $40 billion cost to patients and insurers of buying all those hypertension drugs. Such a study would be roundly criticized for failing to take into account an essential component of cost – the cost of the intervention that led to lower medical expenditures.
But studies like the hypothetical drug company study appear constantly in the health policy literature. Almost all peer-reviewed papers that examine managed-care interventions – HMOs, ACOs, “medical homes,” “value-based purchasing,” etc – fail to report the cost of the intervention. Instead, they measure only medical costs or medical utilization rates. If they find that costs or utilization rates fell, the vast majority of studies imply or come right out and claim that “costs“ went down. This unethical practice is so widespread and so chronic I propose we give it a name. I propose we call it the “free lunch syndrome.”
Bridget Duffy, the CMO of communications tech company Vocera & head of its Experience Innovation Network, is a national leader in the patient experience movement. And we all agree there are lots of improvements needed in the experience for both patients and front line clinicians. Anyone following the story about the death of my friend Jess Jacobs last year knows that there are problems a plenty in how patients are treated (pun intended). Bridget talked with me at HIMSS17 about how well we’ve done and how far we have to go.
If you carve a huge chunk of revenue out of Obamacare and shift more subsidies to the middle class it should not be a surprise that the lower income folks will pay the price
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that 14 million people would lose coverage in 2018, 21 million in 2020, and 24 million in 2026 if the House Republican plan is allowed to significantly amend the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare).
In my last post, I called the House Republican bill “mind boggling” for the negative impact I believe it would have on the number of those uninsured and the viability of the individual insurance market. Guess the CBO agrees with me.
The CBO’s report came after the Brookings Institute estimated 15 million people would lose Medicaid and individual health insurance coverage at the end of ten years under the Republican plan. The arguably more business oriented S&P Global estimated between 6 million and 10 million people would lose coverage between 2020 and 2024.
Call it what you want, disruption or evolution, but when two of the largest for-profit hospital chains, HCA Healthcare and Tenet Healthcare, and one of the largest insurance intermediary services companies, Optum (part of UnitedHealth Group), invest billions of dollars in capital for building new care settings, everyone should take notice. From freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), to urgent care centers, to retail pharmacy-sponsored clinics and employer co-located clinics, the disruption of care delivery is all around us.
How does General Community Hospital compete with Walmart, CVS and Walgreens (retail clinics)? How does it compete with Urgent Care Centers? How will it compete with freestanding ASCs? How does a hospital stop consumers’ desire for savings and convenience? How does it stop physicians’ own desire for convenience and efficiency? This is the disintermediation of hospitals in a very big way! General Community Hospitals can zero base care, but they need to have answers more in line with a consumer retail operation than those of a charity. How many product lines does a focused factory operate?
SAP is a giant of ERP but over a decade or so has been layering both new acquisitions in analytics (Business Objects, Success Factors) and developing the Hana “cloudfirst” data platform. They’re actually a quiet giant in health care, in part because of a partnership with Epic. But the next step is providing what they’re calling a “democratization of data analytics” allowing line managers & clinicians to really understand what’s happening at the coal face of care delivery. It’s a complex space, but one David Delaney, Chief Medical Officer at SAP, explains in this interview from HIMSS17
Last Monday, as promised, House Speaker Paul Ryan fulfilled his pledge to offer up the GOP’s plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.
In reality, America’s Health Care Act (AHCA) is not a new plan. Rather, it’s an updated version of the “Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015” that passed the 114th Congress October 23, 2015 before being vetoed by President Obama. Surrogates for this plan are quick to point out that their Repeal and Replace effort also encompasses administrative orders from HHS Secretary Tom Price, executive orders from President Trump and legislation to be passed through regular order (requiring 60 Senate votes). But the AHCA is unquestionably the first and most important of these elements: it signifies to Repeal and Replace proponents that the new Republican majority intends to make good on its promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
Its status is this: the AHCA cleared the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committee votes last week. Later today, the Congressional Budget Office will render its assessment of the plan’s financial impact and its underlying assumptions about possible changes in insurance coverage. After passage in the House, it will go to the Senate where it will be modified and likely passed along party lines under the restrictions of reconciliation. Its sponsors hope it will be law within six weeks as their initial phase of Repeal and Replace.
We very recently supported the new EU-funded project eHealth Hub in surveying over 300 European digital health SMEs. I expected some of the results but got a few surprises too I wanted to share.
82% of EU startups stated revenues under 100K€, including 39% of them still being pre-revenues:
So I guess they are right when they say digital health is still young in Europe. I hate hearing it because reviewing Health 2.0 Europe demo applications year after year, it is clear that the maturity of the solutions is definitely up. I can only conclude that the supply side is maturing faster that the demand side – whether we are talking of consumer or professional facing solutions.
I was also surprised to see that most SMEs are working on B2B or B2B2C solutions:
Surprised because we always benchmark our investment flow to the US’, but the lion’s share of the deals is still going to B2C solutions over there. We tend to blame it on investors, but maybe our investment flow would be a lot greater if only that ‘C’ was stronger and Europeans were ready to open their wallets and become health consumers?
Cancer is a devious and devastating disease. All it takes are a few bad cells to grow uncontrollably, first destroying organs, then an entire person. It can also lie dormant for years after supposedly being cured, then at some moment awaken from its remission slumber to resume its search-and-destroy mission. Even if cancer is controlled, it can still leave its victim in a weakened or debilitated condition, a shadow of its former robust self.
What if the Affordable Care Act, affectionately known as Obamacare, was unintentionally infected with cancer back in 2010 when it was voted into law? What if the cancer could be reactivated at any time? After all, we had to “pass the bill to find out what’s in it” according to one of its proponents. Surprise, the dormant cancer is already in the law.
Ideally, cancer is removed from the body entirely. A true cure. For Obamacare, this would mean repealing the bill entirely. Despite campaign promises of repeal, legislatively, this is a nonstarter. This is worth a brief review as many think a simple repeal bill from the House is possible.
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