The Health Care Blog – Page 725 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

GOP Bill Promotes Greater Federal Control of Exchanges

May 2, 2011

By MERRILL GOOZNER

The latest Republican effort to undermine health care reform hits the House floor this week with the law of unintended consequences clearly in play. If the bill actually became law – an unlikely event since the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House – it would promote the federal takeover of health care, something Republicans have consistently opposed on the campaign trail.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, withdraws federal financial support for state-based insurance exchanges. The exchanges, which will provide a clearing house for health insurance policies sold to individuals and small groups, are supposed to be up and running by January 2014.

The original Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act created an open-ended federal grant program to help states defray the costs of setting up the exchanges. Eliminating that support would save the federal government about $1.9 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which released a cost estimate for H.R. 1213 late Thursday.Continue reading…

Big community hospital CEO pay-out. Normal, criminal, both?

May 1, 2011• 1

Salinas is a poor-ish rural California town down Highway 101 from Silicon Valley, and the financial contrast between the two is similar to that between Beverly Hills and Bell, a California city where officials’ salaries sparked national outrage and then arrests. Now it turns out that the CEO of the local Salinas community hospital got a $4m retirement pay-out and a $150,000 a year pension and managed to stay on in his job for another two years at $668,000 a year and when he retired last week he got another payment of nearly $900,000. Can we expect the same in the Salinas case as in Bell? I doubt it because that would expose to the world that there are thousands of community hospitals all over America paying their CEOs the same kind of money–ignoring the $1 million + salaries most AMCs dole out. Can running a 300 bed hospital really be that difficult?

The Identity Theft Smoke Screen

May 1, 2011• 3

By CHRISTOPHER J. ASAKIEWICZ

Personal data privacy once again has taken front stage in Sorrel v. IMS Health, Inc.[1] Vermont passed the Vermont Confidentiality of Prescription Information Law that allows doctors which prescribe drugs to patients, to decide whether pharmacies can sell their prescription drug prescription records.[2] IMS Health as well as other health information companies contested the law, arguing that the law poses a restriction on commercial speech as access to such information helps pharmaceutical companies market their drugs effectively to doctors. The Supreme Court is now tasked with determining the constitutionality of the restriction on access to prescription information with regards to our First Amendment. [3]

However, this post is focused on the secondary effects asserted in amici curiae briefs supporting the petitioners of allowing companies to purchase such information, specifically the concern of data privacy and patient re-identification. [4] Under the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), personal health information is de-identified by your local pharmacy prior to such information being shared with any third party. By de-identifying the data, your personal data cannot, it is believed, be linked or traced back to you. De-identifying your health information is a way for covered entities to share your information without your consent or authorization and in accordance with the law. The information once shared is completely anonymized. After the transfer to a third party, like IMS Health, your information is solely data of zeros and ones that translate to dates of dispensing and drug names. No longer does your prescription record list your name or month or day of birth. [5]Continue reading…

Connector Update

May 1, 2011• 1

By PAUL LEVY

This report of recent activity in Massachusetts may be of special interest to my out-of-state readers. The insurance exchange set up by the Legislature when the MA health care access bill was passed has gotten very good grades. The folks there have had many things to balance, and they have done it thoughtfully. This report was posted on April 22 by Glen Shor, the current Executive Director. He succeeded Jon Kingsdale last April.

April showered us with reasons to be optimistic about the state of health care reform in Massachusetts.

Faced with projected 11% membership growth in the Commonwealth Care program next year as people lose unemployment benefits – and no additional resources to cover that growth – we encouraged our Medicaid managed care organizations to deliver high-quality, cost-effective coverage for less. They came through for the taxpayers with savings of $80 million, meaning that our members will not have to face the prospect of benefit reductions or unaffordable co-payments.

There was also good news for small business owners looking for an easy way to find affordable health insurance for their employees. Starting in July, we are eliminating all up-front fees for purchasing coverage through the Health Connector and will be launching a wellness program and premium discounts for qualifying small businesses. Within a few months, we will also be expanding the choice of health insurance carriers available to small businesses through our easy-to-use, online shopping experience – and even adding an additional carrier for individual purchasers. Our unsubsidized Commonwealth Choice program has doubled in membership over the past year-and-a-half, and these upgrades should make it an even more appealing tool for comparing options and choosing coverage that best suits one’s needs.

And, of course, the fifth anniversary of Massachusetts health care reform was officially marked by Governor Patrick and others at the Dorchester House this month. While we are proud of the fact that 98.1 percent of our residents and 99.8 percent of our children have coverage, the event poignantly showcased that reform isn’t just about numbers. It’s about helping people. We’re succeeding on both fronts.

On the national scene, the Massachusetts experience continues to be closely examined as other states begin to develop their health insurance Exchanges. Partnering with MassHealth and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, we were successful in obtaining a $35.6 million three-year federal grant that will not only help us share our technological knowledge and practices with other New England states but also improve our web-based shopping experience for Massachusetts consumers and small businesses.

Medicare Announces Rules For Quality Bonuses To Hospitals

May 1, 2011• 5

By JORDAN RAU

Medicare took its broadest step yet in moving away from its traditional hospital payment method, finalizing a plan to alter reimbursements based on the quality of care hospitals provide and patients’ satisfaction during their stays.

The initiative is the beginning of a transition from paying hospitals on the basis of the amount of care they provide. Many health care researchers believe this fee-for-service system has encouraged unnecessary care, driving up costs and giving hospitals no incentive to economize.

Medicare’s new “value-based purchasing” program was mandated in last year’s health care law. It has sparked less discussion than has another experiment to change Medicare’s payment system through accountable care organizations, where a select group of doctors and hospitals get bonuses if they find ways to save money.

But this latest payment change affects twenty times more hospitals than would ACOs. More than 3,000 acute care hospitals will have their payments adjusted starting in October 2012.Continue reading…

How Many Diseases Does It Take?

May 1, 2011• 4

By MARYA ZILBERBERG, MD

It is not a secret that I dislike tobacco companies. Intensely. I do not see the point of allowing them to sell a product whose value is all in the negative. I am appalled that we are looking for expensive ways to diminish lung cancer mortality before considering a complete ban on this disease promotion apparatus. Yet this story in the LA Times got my goat. Briefly, a woman who has smoked for years and has had smoking-related obstructive lung disease since 1989 decided to sue tobacco companies after developing lung cancer in 2003. The suit has been making the rounds in various levels of courts, since the defendants asserted that she had exceeded the 2-year statute of limitations following the onset of her smoking-caused disease, referring to the 1989 COPD diagnosis. However, the California State Supreme Court has ruled that she can still sue the manufacturers, since she filed her suit within two years of the lung cancer diagnosis. So, why am I bothered?

Well, here is the thing: once you develop lung disease, followed by periodontal disease, as this woman did, had she really remained unaware that cigarettes are bad? That they cause problems? Is it really possible to live in our world and NOT be aware that tobacco kills? And if she was aware and continued to smoke, whose responsibility is it that she developed lung cancer, hers or the manufacturer’s? Well, you say, but the tobacco companies are unethical and lied about making cigarettes more addictive by adding undisclosed ingredients. So, how are we, the consumers, to know? Well, this is pretty simple: We have free will, don’t we? And if you have the free will, you have to exercise some will power, no? Is this not what the human condition is all about? Continue reading…

Vermont Chooses Single-Payer: Who Else Has an Appetite for Experimentation?

Apr 29, 2011• 28

By JONATHAN HALVORSON

This past Monday, the Vermont Senate passed a Single-Payer bill. The House had already passed a similar bill and the governor is friendly to the legislation, so all that stands between Vermont and a single-payer law are a few formalities. At the moment, though, Vermont is alone in taking advantage of the Affordable Care Act to achieve universal coverage without private insurers. In fact, it isn’t clear that any other states are taking serious steps even toward a public option.

Massachusetts isn’t going there: it is doubling-down on its eponymous model that relies on private health plans, and seems hell bent on showing the nation that this model can work. The state just boasted that capitation rates will actually go down in 2012, allowing the program to grow enrollment without additional funding. It’s not difficult to imagine the feeling of responsibility weighing on administrators and Democratic officials there as they work to pull the levers of payment reform to reign in Partners HealthCare and other misbehavers.Continue reading…

Some Employers Already Sending Workers To Exchanges to Buy Health Insurance

Apr 29, 2011

By JULIE APPLEBY

Fed up with the unpredictable cost of health insurance for his small business, Mike Sarafolean last year made a dramatic change: Instead of picking a plan to offer workers, he now sends them to a “private exchange” or marketplace where they compare and choose their own insurance. And the amount his company pays toward coverage is capped.

Mike Sarafolean, CEO of Orion Corporation of Minnesota, last year joined a growing number of employers embracing a dramatic change in the way they offer health benefits (Photo by Andy King).

The move puts his St. Paul, Minn.-based company on the leading edge of a nascent trend that could shape how more employers offer and pay for their health benefits in the coming years. It is part of an ongoing evolution in job-based health benefits that is gradually shifting cost and responsibility to workers.

The private exchanges, mainly run by former insurance executives and employee benefit consulting firms, operate in more than 20 states.Continue reading…

Are We Entering an Era of Political Cooperation on Medicare?

Apr 29, 2011• 19

By DAVID E. WILLIAMS

There’s a chance that we’re starting to see a convergence of opinion on Medicare among Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. I know the recent bickering makes this seem like an odd contention, but consider the following:

In recent decades Republicans have done a great job of tarring Democrats with the “tax and spend” label while being fiscally irresponsible themselves. Republicans criticized Carter era deficits, and then proceeded to run up much more startling deficits under President Reagan. Bill Clinton had us looking at surpluses(!) as far as the eye could see until W came in and sent the red ink soaring –partly through tax cuts but largely by boosting spending. When Republicans continued brandishing the “tax and spend” cudgel, Democrats figured they were suckers to go the Clinton route of fiscal responsibility and get no credit for it
We’re now at the point where the size of the national debt actually matters. The only way to bring it under control is to bring deficits down. This is something on which Republicans and Democrats can agree. So now you’ve got both parties committed to the idea of deficit reduction; that just hasn’t been the case before.
There are still big differences on how to do it, but approaches –at least on Medicare– are likely to converge once the challenge is faced in a serious way, i.e., with an eye toward solving the problem rather than pandering to one group or another. In the case of Medicare, Republicans are likely to move toward the Democrats’ position over time.Continue reading…