Tags: health insurance
Blog Posts (30)
Jun 07, 2011
Unintended Effect of Obamacare: Employer-based Insurance Disappears?
This could hardly have been the intent when healthcare reform was passed last year, but a recent study by top-notch consulting firm McKinsey suggests that as many as 30% of employers plan to drop health insurance as a benefit when the new healthcare law goes into effect.…
Mar 24, 2010
Three Points of View on Health Care Reform: A Podcast and a Blog
The Bioethics Channel at the Center for Practical Bioethics presents an ethical analysis of the historical passage of health care reform.…
Mar 04, 2010
If You Are STILL Wondering Why Health Care Reform Is Important...
Check out this statistic from the Chicago Tribune today: “Illinois consumers to pay up to 60% more [for health insurance premiums], data show.” When do they pay more?…
Oct 05, 2009
Right to Reform says Caplan
Published last week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Art Caplan discusses the “right to reform”. What does this quite simple sounding phrase mean?…
Jun 08, 2009
Has Medical Bankruptcy Become Part of the American Way?
Following up on last week’s post which talked about how even insured Americans are shelling out more and more dollars out of pocket to pay for their healthcare, guest blogger Emily Willingham, PhD tells us that research suggest that in addition to that frightening trend there is even more to fear when it comes to paying for healthcare access, even if you have health insurance.…
Jun 03, 2009
Health Insurance Doesn't Prevent Huge Out of Pocket Costs
Over the last three years, according to research published in Health Affairs, out-of-pocket healthcare costs have increased 34% says WSJ.…
May 28, 2009
"Hidden Health Taxes" Neither Ethical Nor Sustainable
It seems as though we don’t have much choice when it comes to health care. Either we are going to pay what the most recent research is calling a “hidden health tax” of something on the order of $1,017 per year to cover the health care costs of the uninsured, at least that’s what Families USA is telling us (says WSJ) or we can pony up the money through tacking on an additional tax on the goods we routinely buy through something like a Value Added Tax (VAT) like they do in Europe and ensure healthcare for all–no matter what.…
Apr 21, 2009
Medicare: The Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future
No, I’m not a health policy analyst. Neither is the average American. But neither are we stupid. That’s why I resent op-ed columns like the one in the Wall Street Journal that read like this:
“Here’s something that has gotten lost in the drive to institute universal health insurance: Health insurance doesn’t automatically lead to health care.
…
Apr 07, 2009
Are You in the Majority?
CBS News is reporting the results of a CBS News/New York Times poll that says that the majority of Americans (57% of them, still not a resounding majority, mind you) would be willing to pay higher taxes for universal health care.…
Apr 07, 2009
China Gets It...Why Doesn't The US?
The Wall Street Journal reports today that China is aiming to improve its health care infrastructure, to expand health insurance for all, and is starting a “decade-long plan to repair an ailing health-care system that has fueled popular discontent.”
Gee whiz…what a novel idea.…
News (14)
May 21, 2012
What could revolutionize health care? This database. (Washington Post)
Think of it as a health policy wonk’s dream: Football stadium after
One insurance company’s data could fill 60 million of these. (bigstockphoto) football stadium packed to the brim with…health insurance claims data. An odd dream, to be sure. But health insurance data is crucial to understand how health care dollars get spent. It shows how people use health care, what’s changing and, in some cases, why. Health insurers, however, have tended to keep that data private, as it could tip competitors off to how they handle business.
May 16, 2012
Gay Marriage is a health-care issue, too (Washington Post)
A team of public health researchers looked at health-care patterns among gay and bisexual men before and after Massachusetts legalized same-sex unions in 2003 (this was prior to the state’s health insurance expansion). Health-care research has increasingly looked at how policy interventions that change the larger environment impact health-care outcomes. In this case, they wanted to know whether legal same-sex marriage — which had the potential to reduce risk factors such as stress — might have an impact.
May 15, 2012
Addiction Diagnoses May Rise Under Guideline Changes (New York Times)
In what could prove to be one of their most far-reaching decisions, psychiatrists and other specialists who are rewriting the manual that serves as the nation’s arbiter of mental illness have agreed to revise the definition of addiction, which could result in millions more people being diagnosed as addicts and pose huge consequences for health insurers and taxpayers.
May 07, 2012
Health disparities persist as overall care quality slowly improves (American Medical News)
Health disparities continue to plague the U.S. health care system, but small gains are giving federal officials some hope that progress will be made in years ahead with implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released its ninth annual National Healthcare Disparities Report and the National Healthcare Quality Report on April 20. The reports showed that although overall quality improved at a rate of 2.5% per year between 2002 and 2008, access to care did not.
Apr 25, 2012
Obamacare collapse would put employers in charge (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
If the Supreme Court strikes down President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, don’t look to government for what comes next. Employers and insurance companies will take charge. They’ll borrow some ideas from Obamacare, ditch others, and push even harder to cut costs.
Apr 25, 2012
Health care laws leave hospitals overwhelmed by 'permanent patients' (msnbc)
An NBC News investigation discovered that cases like Latasiewicz’s are not unusual, but the result of current health care policies and guidelines. They are known as “permanent patients” and are hidden in plain sight in hospital rooms across the country. That’s because under federal law, hospitals must treat any patient who needs emergency medical attention even if they have no way to pay. Nursing and rehab facilities are not required by law to do so. At the same time, hospitals cannot discharge a patient without a plan in place for his or her ongoing care. The result is patients stuck in the hospital in need of long-term care but with nowhere to go, large medical bills, and no way to pay – a cost that is usually covered at the hospital’s expense.
Apr 17, 2012
It's Not About Broccoli!: The False Case Against Health Care (The Atlantic)
The challengers of the health insurance mandate have focused on the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. As conservative Judge Silberman held, the text giving Congress the power to “regulate commerce” does seem to include a power to mandate purchases, given 1780s dictionary definitions of “regulate.” The challengers argue that this plain meaning should nonetheless be resisted because otherwise the clause would lack any “limiting principle,” and thus could be used to force us to buy GM cars, cell phones, burial insurance, or — their favorite bugaboo — broccoli.
Apr 12, 2012
States Seek Curb on Patient Bills for Costly Drugs (New York Times)
Spurred by patients and patient advocates like Ms. Kuhn, lawmakers in at least 20 states, from Maine to Hawaii, have introduced bills that would limit out-of-pocket payments by consumers for expensive drugs used to treat diseases like cancer,rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and inherited disorders.
Apr 03, 2012
The Next Health Care Frontier (Politico)
As the debate on health care reignites, many reformers are promoting new ideas to improve transparency in the dynamic marketplace of health services. Central to the private-sector model for the health care delivery system is an emporium of competing institutions and services that can provide consumers with a variety of choices with visible costs and measurable quality. This approach is clearly the best alternative to a government-run, bureaucratic system that rations health care choices as a strategy for controlling costs.
Apr 02, 2012
Taking Responsibility for Death (NY Times)
The hospice room and pain-relieving palliative care cost only about $400 a day, while the average hospital stay costsMedicare over $6,000 a day. Although Mom’s main concern was her comfort and dignity, she also took satisfaction in not running up Medicare payments for unwanted treatments and not leaving private medical bills for her children to pay. A third of the Medicare budget is now spent in the last year of life, and a third of that goes for care in the last month. Those figures would surely be lower if more Americans, while they were still healthy, took the initiative to spell out what treatments they do — and do not — want by writing living wills and appointing health care proxies.