Puerto Rico ’s Half-Hearted Stab at Fiscal Reform Threatens the Island’s Long-Term Prospects
Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello and Federal Oversight Board Chairman Jose Carrion III will be in Washington this week to testify before Congress on the progress the Commonwealth has made since President Obama signed The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) into law last summer. At the time, the press heralded the legislation as a bipartisan achievement and a legislative victory for House Speaker Paul Ryan, but that declaration of victory is beginning to appear a bit premature.Eight months later, and six weeks before the bill ’s stay on litigation expires, Governor Rossello and Cha...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 20, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Ike Brannon Source Type: blogs
Who Benefits? - From the Mayo Clinic Explicitly Putting Commercially Insured Patients Ahead of Some Government Insured Patients?
Amidst all the chaotic noise emanating from Washington, DC, little snippets of news keep slipping out reminding us that the US health care system remains monumentally dysfunctional, and that the dysfunction serves the interests of the system ' s insiders.Putting Commercially Insured Patients FirstOn March 15, 2017, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune first reported that the CEO of the august Mayo Clinic had stated in a late 2016 speech to Clinic personnel that henceforth the institution would preferentially accept patients with private insurance over those with public (Medicaid or Medicare) insurance under certain circumstances.w...
Source: Health Care Renewal - March 20, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: discrimination executive compensation Mayo Clinic Medicaid Medicare mission-hostile management Source Type: blogs
Non-Alternative Facts About the Healthcare System
By JOE FLOWER
The economic fundamentals of healthcare in the United States are unique, amazingly complex, multi-layered and opaque. It takes a lot of work and time to understand them, work and time that few of the experts opining about healthcare on television have done. Once you do understand them, it takes serious independence, a big ornery streak, and maybe a bit of a career death wish to speak publicly about how the industry that pays your speaking and consulting fees should, can, and must strive to make half as much money. Well, I turn 67 this year and I’m cranky as hell, so let’s go.
The Wrong Question
We are ba...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 26, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Democrats Should Be Heartened by Betsy DeVos
Unless something unexpected happens, tomorrow the United States Senate will vote on Betsy DeVos to be the next U.S. Secretary of Education. And if you are a Democrat sweating through nightmares over what a Trump administration will do to education, you should be pretty comfy with what DeVos has said she ’d like to see happen under her watch. As she stated repeatedly in herconfirmation hearing, she would not use federal power —and certainly not secretarial power—to impose anything, including school choice, on unwilling states and districts.But isn ’t the vote expected to be as close as last night’s Super Bowl at t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 6, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Neal McCluskey Source Type: blogs
DeVos Moves On, and So Does Choice vs. “Accountability” Debate
In a committee vote the tightness of which surprised no one, this morning President Trump ’s nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was approved on a purely partisan basis by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. DeVos’s nomination now moves to the full Senate.While the rhetoric surrounding DeVos has been heavily targeted at her competence, the main issue seems to be that Democrats generally oppose private school choice programs while Republicans generally do not. Even questions about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) at DeVos ’s confirmation hearing—would she suppo...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 31, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Neal McCluskey Source Type: blogs
Weekly Overseas Health IT Links – 28th January, 2017.
Here are a few I came across last week. Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.-----http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/tom-price-takes-aim-inefficiencies-meaningful-use-questions-how-pay-precision-medicineTom Price takes aim at the inefficiencies of meaningful use, questions how to pay for precision medicineThe HHS nominee decries a law that has turned physicians "into data entry clerks." Meanwhile, genomics represents a "brave new world," he...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - January 27, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
Key Takeaways From the Price Confirmation Hearing
BY PAUL KECKLEY
As DC readies for the Inaugural fest, the four-hour confirmation hearing for President-elect Trump’s nominee for HHS Secretary, Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon and six term House of Representatives’ member from the Atlanta suburbs, was the focus yesterday. For healthcare industry watchers, the contentious hearing surfaced several themes likely to mark the new administration’s approach to its health policies.
Key takeaways from yesterday:
Party posturing: The orchestration of each party’s messaging was evident and in stark contrast. Democrats on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 19, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Repeal Replace Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Not Normal Chaos
By JOE FLOWER
The short version of Vox’s Sarah Skiff on “Why Republican disarray on health care doesn’t doom repeal efforts” would read something like: “It always looks this way in the throes of preparing major legislation. Remember how wild and confusing it was when the Democrats were trying to put together healthcare reform in 2009? Joe Lieberman was insisting on a public option, ‘pro-life’ Democrats were insisting that anti-abortion language be written in? Just because it’s chaotic doesn’t mean it won’t get anywhere.”
She’s right, of course — and she’s wrong in a significant way: In...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 19, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Repeal Replace Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
The Perfect Complement to Your School or Hospital Pension
If your employer provides a pension, be happy. A pension provides a powerful retirement tool in your arsenal. The jovial folks at the Department of Labor and National Association of State Retirement Administrators estimate 85 percent of state and local government employees participate in a defined benefit pension. I’m looking at you, public school clinicians. If you work at a federally operated hospital (like a Veterans Affairs facility) or institution, this applies to you, too. Even many nongovernment-operated hospitals offer pensions.
Here’s the thing: As awesome as pensions are, they’ll likely not cover your ideal...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - January 19, 2017 Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Jacob Parish Tags: Audiology Speech-Language Pathology Health Care retirement planning Schools Source Type: blogs
(In)digesting the DeVos Confirmation Hearing
I got mydinner and a show last night. The dinner was fine, but the show? Not so great. Not much substance was covered in the DeVos confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, and when meaty issues were brought up they were too often smothered in gotcha questions and commentary rather than meaningful discussion.A good part of the hearing was occupied by bickering over each committee member only getting one, five-minute questioning period, and whether or not that was committee tradition or an effort by the GOP majority to protect the witness. Maybe that ’s insightful stuff if you...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 18, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Neal McCluskey Source Type: blogs
Will Senescent Cell Clearance Therapies Sink the Pensions and Annuity Industry?
The annuity and pensions industries, private and public, include some of the largest of all financial institutions. Collectively they are enormous, representing a staggering amount of money under management. To simplify a complex picture greatly, most of these programs take the form of a wager against longevity. The competing companies that issue annuities and manage pensions make offers of future payments to their customers based on the consensus predictions of life expectancy, and on their own private models that seek to improve on that consensus for specific demographics and thereby price the future more effectively tha...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 14, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Of Interest Source Type: blogs
Will Senescent Cell Clearance Therapies Sink the Pensions and Annuities Industry?
The annuities and pensions industries, private and public, include some of the largest of all financial institutions. Collectively they are enormous, representing a staggering amount of money under management. To simplify a complex picture greatly, most of these programs take the form of a wager against longevity. The competing companies that issue annuities and manage pensions make offers of future payments to their customers based on the consensus predictions of life expectancy, and on their own private models that seek to improve on that consensus for specific demographics and thereby price the future more effectively t...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 14, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Of Interest Source Type: blogs
ACA Round-Up: Enrollment Report, Repeal Efforts, And More (Updated)
This report is intended to counter recent claims that the individual insurance market is in a “death spiral, collapsing of its own weight.” The report first asserts that continued growth in individual market enrollment, as reported in the contemporaneous CMS report, establishes that 2017 premium increases are not having substantial adverse effects on individual market enrollment. Because premium increases are largely covered by increased premium tax credits for most enrollees, the premium increases are not deterring consumers from coverage. Enrollment is essentially growing at the same rate in areas with high as compar...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 11, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage advance premium tax credits open enrollment risk corridor payments Source Type: blogs
Oregon ’s High-Risk, High-Reward Gamble On Medicaid Expansion
Health policy in Oregon is like football in the Southeastern Conference: not only a contact sport but also a source of intense civic pride. In the early 1990s, under the leadership of its physician Governor John Kitzhaber, Oregon created a “first in the nation” state-run managed care plan for Medicaid, the Oregon Health Plan, expanding its covered population by nearly 50 percent. He funded the expansion in part by a controversial priority system for redesigning the benefit package, and instituted population-based payments to health insurers.
The Oregon Health Plan succeeded in mainstreaming Medicaid patients into priva...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 10, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Jeff Goldsmith and Bruce Henderson Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Health Policy Lab Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy coordinated care organization John Kitzhaber Oregon Oregon Health Plan Section 1115 Waivers Source Type: blogs
Medical Technology: What Changing Venture Capital Investments Signal
The market for medical devices historically has been dominated by big-ticket “physician preference items” such as artificial joints, spinal implants, and cardiac pacemakers. Venture capital and private equity investors have been eager to fund new firms in this expanding and lucrative domain. Changes in physician payment and organization are reducing the demand for these cost-increasing innovations, however, and redirecting the flow of investment capital.
For the past decade we have been studying medical device innovation (startup firms) and adoption (hospital organizations), starting from different angles but arriving ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 9, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Josh Baltzel and James C. Robinson Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Featured Health IT Health Professionals Hospitals medical devices venture capitalism Source Type: blogs
