The Health Care Blog – Page 959 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

Be careful what you wish for

Oct 28, 2008• 16

By Charlie Baker

Charlie Baker is the president and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health
Care. This post first appeared on his blog, Lets Talk Health Care.

The show is
pretty much the same – every time. Public sector entity gets in budget
trouble, cuts have to be made, and providers who do business with the
public sector get hammered – hard. It’s happened with Medicare at
the federal level for years, and it happens with Medicaid at the state
level with some frequency as well.

Well, the show is back in town, as state governments face declining
revenues. In Massachusetts, the state is not only cutting Medicaid
payments prospectively – it’s cutting Medicaid payments for some
providers retrospectively – simply choosing not to make payments to
them they had planned on and expected.

I must say, each time this happens, I can’t help but wonder if the
hospital operators and physician leaders who think a single-payer like
Medicare For All is a good idea ever stop to think about how these
agencies deal with their financial problems. When they have a problem,
they unilaterally whack their provider community hard – in ways private
sector payers would never consider.

And then those same providers who think Medicare For All is a great
idea turn to the private health plans they do business with and say,
“Hey – you need to help solve my Medicare/Medicaid deficit – which just
got worse.”

Sheesh. All I can say is, “be careful what you wish for.”

Entering the era of participatory medicine

Oct 28, 2008• 2

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

I’ve returned from a week of Health 2.0 immersion on the west coast. The top-line finding: we’ve entered the period we can call Participatory Medicine. For some, like the pioneering Gilles Friedman of ACOR, this is nothing new. Other people have never heard of it. It’s global. It’s local. It’s a movement and a verb, as I pointed out thirteen months ago following the inaugural Health 2.0 conference. H20logo_2

Here are some reflections…

On Tuesday, I appeared on a panel on Health 2.0 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco for KQED public radio, sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation. The Club’s motto by founder Edward Adams is, "We only propose to find truth and turn it loose in the world." My fellow panelists resemble that remark! They were the inspiring Amy Tenderich, founder and blogger of Diabetes Mine; and the ebullient, motivating and insightful Dr. Ted Eytan, now with Kaiser Permanente. We riffed on the roots of H2.0, the risks and benefits of people sharing health information and opinions online, and prospects for the future. Amy and Ted were stellar and shared their special perspectives as patient and doctor, respectively. When the podcast online is available, I will point you to it.

Will a $5,000-tax credit be the silver bullet to solve health care?

Oct 28, 2008• 9

By Shuka Kalantari John_mccain

If Senator John McCain becomes U.S. president he plans to give each American family $5,000 to pay for health insurance premium costs in the individual market. Individuals would get $2,500 for the same use.

How does McCain propose to pay for this? In part, by revoking the tax deductibility of workers’ health benefits and by making cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Even with these provisions, however, The Tax Policy Center estimates McCain’s plan will run an estimated $1.3 trillion short in funding over the next ten years.

In McCain’s “Health Care Action” television ad, he says, “The problem with health care in America is not the quality of health care, it’s the availability and the affordability. And that has to do with the dramatic increase in the cost of health care.”

Make your voice heard!

Oct 28, 2008• 3

For the next week, you have a unique opportunity to make your voice heard on health information privacy issues, their impact on the Health 2.0 movement, and how best to build public trust in these technologies.

The National Academy of Public Administration (with funding from the Office of Management & Budget) is hosting a unique "national dialogue" on the intersection of health IT and privacy, which will take place on the Web beginning yesterday, October 27, and lasting through November 3.

They are seeking to gather feedback from the public on the important privacy issues that confront all of us as we promote the movement to e-health. A report will be generated based on the responses, so it is important that a broad range of stakeholders participate. Go to www.thenationaldialogue.org to find out more and to log on!

Hat tip to: The Health 2.0 social network

Some more reflections on Health 2.0

Oct 27, 2008• 7

By Matthew Holt H20logo

It’s late at night and I’m red-eye-ing it to Boston to the Partners Center for Connected Health Symposium. Just like at Health 2.0 last week there’s going to be about 1,000 people there. And while originally the session I’m leading on Social Networks was going to be about it for Health 2.0, the agenda has morphed quite a bit and several of the people and players who were on at Health 2.0 are also going to be in Boston. (Although my understanding is that the polite Harvard guys won’t torture them into demoing the way we make them do it!)

That tells you a couple of things. First, smart people think alike. While Connected Health started out as being mainly about remote monitoring and its place in disease management, the core group of consumer-facing tools that make up an increasing share of Health 2.0 are entering into the DM and Connected Health realm. Second, the semi-automated DM systems that are primarily call-center driven are suffering some more realistic expectations compared to the famous $34bn plus forecast from Forrester a while back. And that of course is highly highly related to the perceived failure of Medicare Health Support.

All of this leads to the underlying tension that Health 2.0 puts squarely on the table. Is the future of health care going to be led by self-organizing groups of patients and their representatives, or will it be dominated by technologically-extended versions of the major health care organizations who are now responsible for care delivery?

My suspicion is that the answer is both.

Firefighters attack McCain’s health plan

Oct 27, 2008• 6

By Shuka Kalantari

The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) recently launched a campaign in support of Senator Obama for president — and an attack on Senator McCain’s health care plan.

The commercial features four firefighters. "Our job is to risk our lives to protect you, and your loved ones. We’re proud of that," one of the firefighters say. "Like you, we need our health care for our families," adds another firefighter.

The IAFF, based in Washington D.C., is a labor union representing approximately 292,000 full-time firefighters and paramedics in the United States and Canada. The commercial will air on local cable networks in New Hampshire, parts of North Carolina, Orlando, St. Louis, parts of Ohio and parts of Virginia.

A Fantasy Brought to You by the New York Times: Medicine Without Risk

Oct 27, 2008• 10

By MAGGIE MAHAR

Sometimes I agree with New York Times’ editorials. Sometimes I don’t. But I rarely learn much from them. To my mind, the problem with the form is that it encourages opining without evidence. So, I admit, I rarely turn to the editorials.

But Buckeye Surgeon pricked my curiosity by referring to a recent New York Times editorial as a “masterpiece of naiveté and contempt.”

Such strong language suggested that the editorial might be entertaining. Thus, I went back and read what turned out to be a piece congratulating Medicare for having decided it “will no longer pay hospitals for the added cost of treating patients who acquire any of 10 ‘reasonably preventable’ conditions while hospitalized. Those include incompatible blood transfusions, severe bedsores, injuries from falls, poor blood sugar control, and infections after certain surgeries.”

This is what I mean about editorials: typically they are monologues that cry out for a good copy editor who asks sensible, logical questions. The first query that springs to mind is this: exactly what does “preventable” mean? How is a “fall” preventable?Continue reading…

Renewing SCHIP will be first order of business for Congress in 2009

Oct 27, 2008• 1

By Don Johnson

The first order of business for the new president and congress in 2009 will be renewing SCHIP, the children’s health program, Credit Suisse notes.

Stocks likely to benefit: Amerigroup (AGP), Centene (CNC), Molina Healthcare (MOH) and Wellcare Health Plans (WCG), which all provide managed care services to Medicaid and SCHIP beneficiaries. Charts for these stocks are here.

Also, congress will deal with a law that would cut by 21% payments to
physicians serving Medicare beneficiaries. The most likely solution
will take money out of Medicare Advantage, which contracts with HMOs to
serve Medicare beneficiaries. This will hurt Coventry (CVH), Humana
(HUM), UnitedHealth Group (UNH) and Wellpoint (WLP). Charts are here.

Full Disclosure: I don’t own any of these stocks. This post first appeared on Johnson’s "The Business Word."

News Stories Explore “Political Sincerity” of Health Care Proposals

Oct 26, 2008• 3

By Christopher Weaver

Health care returned to its rightful place – relative to public opinion – in media coverage over the last few weeks, displacing the war in Iraq and the economy as the number three election issue, according to LexisNexis Analytics.

But during the same time period, people who responded to Kaiser Family Foundation’s October tracking poll, published Tuesday, showed less urgency in their calls for reform than they have in previous months. While it remained among the top three priorities for voters considering their November pick, concern about the economy, and its crisis, pushed down interest in health care reform and Iraq.

To the extent that the presidential campaigns are able to link health care costs to the economic lives of middle class voters, the issue appears useful on the campaign trail, but writers in these last couple of weeks have explored whether significant reform is economically feasible given the declining markets and growing national debt. In particular, doubts about the numbers put forward by both campaigns have been fodder for news articles in the week leading up to the final, Oct. 15 presidential debate. Many reporters’ sources seem skeptical about reform and some stories have questioned the honesty with which the candidates press their overhauls desipte fiscal turmoil.

Health care at risk

Oct 25, 2008• 3

By Jacob Hacker

Jacob S. Hacker is Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of
the Center for Health, Economic, and Family Security at U.C. Berkeley.
He is also a Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C.

Health reform is moving back to the top of the political agenda. Over the last fifteen years, the biggest problems in U.S. health care—the dwindling reach and generosity of private coverage, the rapid escalation of costs, the uneven quality of care—have all grown substantially worse. Now, we may well finally have a true opportunity to address these problems. What are the big issues at stake? What are the options for reform? And what are the prospects for real change after decades of political defeat?

These are the questions taken up in Health At Risk: America’s Ailing Health System–And How to Heal It, a book I recently put together that features the commentary of some of the nation’s leading experts on health care (plus yours truly). The book is premised on a simple notion: All of us are entitled to our own opinions about health care, but not our own facts.

The chapters in the book — on the uninsured, medical bankruptcy, the quality of American medical care, the consumer-directed health care movement, and the political prospects for reform — carefully examine these facts and offer original ideas for reform. The contributors don’t check their opinions at the door. But they all ground their arguments in the evidence, and express those arguments in clear and straightforward language. In short, the authors are experts who have written their contributions so that they are accessible to interested nonexperts—which, ideally, should include all Americans, so important is this discussion to us all.