Medicare and Social Security Are Responsible for 95 Percent of U.S. Unfunded Obligations
This report is intended to provide a short‐term view of the government’s financial h ealth, including the baseline against which new spending and tax proposals will be scored. Such scores inform legislators about the fiscal impact their proposals would have on 10‐year budget projections and whether they would trigger deficit‐reduction rules such as CUT-GO, a House rule th at requires offsetting spending reductions if legislation were to increase mandatory spending during the decade.The Financial Report Deserves More AttentionThe Financial Report of the U.S. Government deserves more attention. The report ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 28, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia Source Type: blogs
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Restructuring primary care in Medicare can address the workforce shortage, improve the health of the population, and create greater equity.
(Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog)
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - March 27, 2023 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Corinne Lewis, Melinda K. Abrams, Christopher F. Koller, Hoangmai (Mai) H. Pham, Robert A. Berenson Source Type: blogs
Telehealth Startup OpenLoop Raises $15 Million to Streamline Virtual Care Delivery
Company launches the first-of-its-kind comprehensive nationwide payer coverage network, offering clients everything they need from first visit to final payment
OpenLoop, a leader in white-label telehealth support services powering virtual and hybrid care across the country, today announced it has raised a $15M Series A funding. The round was led by Nava Ventures, with participation from new investors UnityPoint Health Ventures and PrimeTime Ventures, and existing investors SpringTide Ventures and ManchesterStory. The company also announced a new nationwide insurance payer network that allows clients to offer reimbursable s...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 27, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring API CAGR Christian Williams Dr. Jon Lensing Freddie Martignetti Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment HIPAA Hybrid Care ManchesterStory Medi Source Type: blogs
Fast Facts about the U.S. Federal Debt
Romina BocciaHigh and rising government debt slows growth, crowds out private investment, limits the government ’s ability to respond to unexpected emergencies, and elevates the risk of a sudden fiscal crisis, where investors would lose confidence in U.S. Treasury bonds and the U.S. dollar. This fact sheet lays out everything legislators and the public need to know about the U.S. federal debt to help them examine the unsustainability of the U.S. budget.The total or gross federal debt is$31.5 trillion. This is the debt subject to the debt limit.At120 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the gross federal debt exceeds...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia Source Type: blogs
Federal Spending Up 40 Percent Since 2019
Chris EdwardsFederal spending jumped from $4.45 trillion in 2019 to $6.21 trillion in 2023, according to theCongressional Budget Office. That is a 40 percent increase in four years. The pandemic supercharged the federal budget, and spending and deficits are expected to continue rising unless policymakers pursue major reforms.What is all the new spending since 2019? The answer is surprising, as shown in the two tables below. The main drivers of the recent increases have not been the largest three programs —Social Security, Medicare, and defense—but rather rapid growth in numerous other programs.Table 1 shows CBO spe...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Bursting the Bubble of Over-Inflated U.S. Insulin Prices Still Leaves Behind a Very Broken U.S. Prescription Drug " Market "
This report pulls back the curtain on the drivers of spiking prices. It ' s a perfect example of why we ought to continue pushing for bipartisan legislation and oversight to address this problem. " " This investigation makes clear that consumers are the only ones losing out in America ' s broken drug pricing system, since every part of the pharmaceutical supply chain benefits from higher list prices. Insulin manufacturers lit the fuse on skyrocketing prices by matching each other ’s price increases step for step rather than competing to lower them, while PBM ' s, acting as middlemen for insurers, fanned the flames t...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 22, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 insulin prices PBM USC Source Type: blogs
10 Budget Reforms Millennials Can Get Behind
Romina BocciaAs federal debt continues to rise, younger generations will bear the brunt of today ’s irresponsible deficit spending. Not all millennials are passive bystanders as Congress seals their fate. The Millennial Debt Foundation (MDF) recently released10 recommendations to address the U.S. debt challenge over the next 30 years.Founded in 2019 with the support ofthe late Senator Tom Coburn, MD, the Foundation convened millennial business leaders and members of Congress to devise a plan to reduce the growth in the federal debt. I am pleased to serve the organization as a senior advisor.The latest Congressional Budge...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 21, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia Source Type: blogs
Empowering Stroke Survivors: Interview with Kirsten Carroll, General Manager at Kandu Health
Kandu Health, a digital health company based in California, has developed a platform to assist stroke survivors with aftercare. Healthcare for stroke patients is primarily focused on acute care to limit the damage caused by the stroke. However, the company has identified that stroke survivors are frequently underserved after hospital discharge, and in many cases are left to cope with the psychological and physical fallout of the stroke with minimal support.
The e-health platform developed by Kandu Health connects stroke survivors with specialists who provide them, and their caregivers, with personalized guidance, educat...
Source: Medgadget - March 20, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Neurology Rehab kanduhealth stroke rehab Source Type: blogs
Empowering Stroke Survivors: Interview with Kirsten Carroll, CEO at Kandu Health
Kandu Health, a digital health company based in California, has developed a platform to assist stroke survivors with aftercare. Healthcare for stroke patients is primarily focused on acute care to limit the damage caused by the stroke. However, the company has identified that stroke survivors are frequently underserved after hospital discharge, and in many cases are left to cope with the psychological and physical fallout of the stroke with minimal support.
The e-health platform developed by Kandu Health connects stroke survivors with specialists who provide them, and their caregivers, with personalized guidance, educat...
Source: Medgadget - March 20, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Neurology Rehab kanduhealth stroke rehab Source Type: blogs
Why does health care cost so much in the U.S. part the infinity
I ' m on a lot of email lists thanks to my profession. A message I got today is below. I won ' t make you read it before I explain that one reason medical services cost so much in this godforsaken country is that providers have to hire people to with specialized training and pay them salaries to deal with this crap. Keep in mind that they see people with multiple different kinds of insurance and they need to keep track of what insurance the person has, what it will pay for, how much, and how, based on manuals containing hundreds of pages of similar dreck. And if they don ' t get it just right, they won ' t be paid. In civi...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 20, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Deficits Caused by Broad ‐Based Spending Increases
Chris EdwardsToday ’s soaring federal deficits are a looming disaster and were sadly avoidable. If policymakers had held spending to the same level relative to gross domestic product (GDP) as under President Bill Clinton, this year’s budget would be balanced. Instead, presidents and congresses over the past two d ecades have failed to reform elderly entitlement programs, while also jacking up spending on many other activities.Thefederal budget was balanced the last four years of the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001, but it has not been balanced since. The imbalance has grown over time, and today ’s policymak...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 17, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
When Patients Know Things the Doctor Does Not
The knowledgeable patient can still be seen as a threat, even by a medical resident. While every institution talks about how they much they care about their patients, they still tell patients that they don’t need to see the data collected on them because they’re not equipped to use their own data. And researchers might not pass useful information from trials on to the very patients who provided the input to those trials.
These problems, along with suggestions for positive uses of data, are described in this video with Christine Von Raesfeld, founder of People with Empathy. Von Raesfeld herself has been dealing ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 17, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Ambulatory Clinical Communication and Patient Experience Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System LTPAC Christine Von Raesfeld Health Datapalooza Healthcare IT Video Interviews patient data Patient Perspective Patients People with Em Source Type: blogs
PointClickCare Advances the Transition Toward Value-Based Care with Acquisition of Patient Pattern
Proven care management solution integrates with leading health information technology platform to improve care for high-needs patient populations
PointClickCare Technologies, a leading healthcare technology platform enabling meaningful collaboration and access to real‐time insights at every stage of the patient healthcare journey, today announced the acquisition of Patient Pattern. The combination of PointClickCare and Patient Pattern will further the companies’ shared vision of enabling better care and outcomes for high-needs populations and provide care teams with the solutions they need to successfully operate at t...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 17, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Care Management Dr. Steven Buslovich EHR Electronic Health Record Goodwin Procter LLP Health IT Acquisitions Healthcare M&A I-SNPs Institutional Special Needs Plans Nemphos Braue LLC Patient Pattern Source Type: blogs
Podcast Episode Recommendation: Our Curious Amalgam Podcast Episode 212
My followers may be forgiven for their lack of awareness, but on October 23, 2022, the man who lead the PBM known as Express Scripts (owned by commercial healthcare insurance company Cigna since 2018) named George Paz died at relatively young age of 67. Mr. Paz began at Express Scripts in 1998 as CFO. By 2003, he was president and by 2005, CEO. Paz retired as CEO in 2016, although he remained chairman until Express Scripts was acquired by Cigna in December 2018. The local newspaper, theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch published his obituaryHERE). While he was an admired business leader in St. Louis, one of the things his comp...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 16, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 episode Express Scripts George Paz PBM podcast USC Source Type: blogs
The Insulin-PBM Rebate Kickback Scheme Appears to Coming to an End
Last year, on March 3, 2022, in what I believe was a fantastic accomplishment relatively early in Aaron Kowalski ' s tenure as CEO, the JDRF and Civica, Inc. (via the company ' s CivicaScript operating unit) jointly announced Civica ' s intention to commercialize biosimilars of the three bestselling insulin analogues at an affordable price of $30/vial or $55/box of five insulin pens. The Civica press release can be seen athttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220303005321/en/Civica-to-Manufacture-and-Distribute-Affordable-Insulin/ and a concurrent press release from JDRF can be seen athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2023 Civica CivicaRx CivicaScript drug prices FTC insulin insulin prices JDRF Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk Pharma Source Type: blogs
