2007
Health Care Quote of the Year
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Business As Usual: California's Health Reform Proposal
Like the other reform efforts we're seeing, California's is characterized by politics, back room dealmaking, and who will win the biggest purse. That's not a probable recipe for real change.
Policy- vs. Market-Based Reforms: RHIOs As A Case Study
RHIOs as Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) offered great promise in theory, but have been blocked by interest groups concerned that the exchange of data would hurt their competitiveness. But that role is now taking on much greater power through Health 2.0 ventures, which will make data available independent of the wishes of those who wish to keep information secret.
Bad Medicine: How The AMA Undermined Primary Care In America
Unknown to most of us, over the last several years a proprietary AMA subsidiary, the RVS Update Committee, has been the sole advisor to CMS on physician reimbursement. Dominated by representatives of medical specialty societies, their consistent advice has resulted in much higher reimbursements for specialists at the expense of primary care and, more importantly, the American people. Their actions are directly attributable to the explosion of health care costs in America and to the crisis.
If Grady Fails
The first cracks in American health care's stability can seen most clearly in our safety net health systems, like Atlanta's Grady Hospital, where years of neglect, underfunding and demand have demoralized and overwhelmed that system's capacity.
Why Consumers' Checkbook v HHS Is A Sideshow
The battles over transparency information will ultimately be swept away and remembered as anachronisms, as the overwhelming pressure for data that can drive decisions wins out.
We Are What We Eat: Where Is America's Leadership
The obesity epidemic has the power to crush America's future, but it's roots can be found in the lobbying efforts of agribusiness and the fast food, prepared food and junk food industries. Like the health care reform problem, we can't solve this unless we fix the way America's policies are developed.
Aspen Health Forum - Removing the Blinders: Dr. Kelman's Wonderful Contribution
Dr. Charles Kelman was a renaissance man, a practitioner and innovator whose contribution to how cataract surgeries are performed transformed the lives of millions of people worldwide. His story was told at the Aspen Institute's Health Forum.
What Obesity Really Costs
New data confirm what we already know: that the societal costs of the obesity epidemic are enormous. This is a problem that can only be solved by the nation's largest, most influential firms who do not profit from vectors that drive obesity.
Aspen Health Forum - Healing Unbound: The Promise of Advancing Computational Power
10/15/07 Filed In:Technology | Health 2.0
Some of health care's greatest promise can be seen in its new technologies, which are blossoming because of rapidly growing computational power.
Aspen Health Forum - A Rage To Know: A Few Days At the Aspen Health Forum
10/14/07 Filed In:Influencers | Global Health
I was a Fellow at the 1st Aspen Health Forum, an incredible experience, filled with remarkable people.
A Broad Vision of Health 2.0
By creating product, service and knowledge exchanges, then knowledge- and data-driven decision support for everyone involved with health care, the Health 2.0 movement holds the promise to fundamentally and positively change how health care works.
The Hot Seat: GM & UAW
The new deal struck between UAW and GM effectively transfers the onus of employee health plan management responsibilities away from the employer and onto the union. This puts the union directly in the hot seat that GM has occupied for decades, and that they've been so effective in exploiting. Now that they're responsible for providing care with defined resources, they may be more receptive to more progressive approaches to managing the care process. Read More...Bogle on the Financial Sector's Threat to Democracy
John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group, has written a clear-eyed, worrisome description of how America's financial sector threatens our democratic foundations. Required reading.
How Might Information Technology Actually Change Health Care
09/20/07 Filed In:Technology | Health 2.0
The application of information technology to health care is still in its infancy, but its potential for risk identification and evaluation is very broad, holding immense promise.
Taking Obesity Seriously
America's obesity epidemic is setting America up to be an unproductive, uncompetitive country with enormous health care maintenance costs.
What About Health Plan Transparency
Shouldn't the performance of health plans be as transparent as they have demanded of providers?
Reform's Tougher Problem
Most reformers frame the problem in terms of universal coverage. But the much more difficult issue is cost and how to control waste in a policy landscape controlled by powerful special interests.
Benign Neglect and the Nursing Shortage
08/21/07 Filed In:Nursing | Public Policy
Despite all the noise about a nursing shortage, we turn away a tremendous number of qualified applicants for lack of nursing instructors. The real reason behind the shortage is our refusal to pay nursing instructors as much as they can make being nurses in the field.
Not Paying For Preventable Errors: A Big Step
On October 1, 2008, Medicare will change decades of policy and stop paying health systems for errors that were preventable. After Medicare took the lead, the major commercial health plans and many Medicaid plans followed, significantly raising the quality bar for hospitals and health systems.
Laszewski on Rove and Medicare D
When you look deeply into it, it becomes clear that Medicare D was the worst kind of public policy, a tremendously expensive and cynical scam perpetrated for the political and financial advantage of the Administration and the drug industry.
Consultants to Hospitals: Prepare for Transparency
08/16/07 Filed In:Hospitals & Health Systems | Transparency
Very progressive health systems like Louisville Norton Healthcare have improved their performance by making it transparent to consumers and, equally important, to their staffs. Now a consulting group advises hospitals that the way of the future is to follow Norton's example.
In McDonalds vs. Kids, Guess Who's Ahead
Until we rein in fast food and give them less free sway with our kids, we're contributing to a national disaster.
The Father of Physical Culture
08/16/07 Filed In:Fitness
Bernarr Macfadden, born in 1868, was the first person to professionally advocate for strength and fitness as a way to a better life.
Managed Care Redux
08/15/07 Filed In:Economics
Despite the pop health care economics views of David Leonhardt, the New York Times Economics writer, there are some important market-based trends afoot in health care that have gotten traction and that have tremendous promise for ameliorating the cost crisis. Health care isn't all rainbow, but its not all tornado either.
Why Brokers Feel Their Commissions Are Justified
Yesterday I pointed out that many brokers act in utter disregard of their clients best interests, instead steering them toward deals that land them the best commissions. Today I present the other side, that many brokers spend an inordinate amount of energy mopping up the health plans' failures.
Brokers and Financial Conflict
While most business' seek objective advice about their health plans, in fact their brokers often steer them to deals that provide the biggest commissions.
Transparency and Health Care Power Shifts
08/09/07 Filed In:Transparency | Economics
The Transparency Genie is out of the bottle and we won't get it back in. It's impossible to succeed in the change by stonewalling or whining. The best strategy is to demonstrably prepare and perform better.
We Must Be Stupid, Stupid, Stupid: Mega Life and Health
08/01/07 Filed In:Health Plans | Coverage
Mega Life and Health is a disgraceful bottom-feeder insurance company that has developed a strong reputation for deception and taking advantage of the unsuspecting. The irony is that it is owned by three major Wall Street investment firms, and occupies a prominent position on the board of America's Health Insurance Plans.
Don't Invite Anyone From Health Care
In October 2006, the Northern Nevada Health Care Coalition decided to hold a health care conference. They made sure their community's health care leaders knew about it, but pointedly told them they weren't invited. And the attendees unanimously agreed to contribute their data into a common data repository, so that it could be mined to identify problems and opportunities. Now they're focused on addressing each problem and opportunity they've found.
Employers, as the purchasers, can drive real solutions when they decide to be decisive.
Employers, as the purchasers, can drive real solutions when they decide to be decisive.
Mr. Bush's Health Care Reform Proposall
The Wall Street Journal ran an article on Mr. Bush's health care reform proposal. In terms of ameliorating the crisis, its functionally meaningless.
The Distribution of the Uninsured and the Total Population By Income Level, 2004
Source: US Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Tabulations of the Current Population Survey
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The Distribution of the Uninsured and the Total Population By Income Level, 2004
Source: US Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Tabulations of the Current Population Survey
Read More...
The Explosion of Large Physician Practices
07/21/07 Filed In:Physicians | Economics
Market economics will drive physicians into larger and larger practices that can afford the infrastructure needed to perform in the changed marketplace.
Should We Have Health Care Performance Transparency? By Whom? And How?
07/19/07 Filed In:Transparency | Public Policy
To heal health care, we need transparency. But it should be provided by neutral organizations that don't have conflicts of interest, and handled to assure doctors and everyone else involved in health care that the reporting will be fair and without prejudice.
To An Engaged Life
07/18/07 Filed In:Fitness
Epidemiologist Ralph S. Paffenbarger Jr., MD, DrPH, ScD died at 84, ironically of heart failure. His life work showed that engagement could prolong life. Equally important, he proved it in his own life, elevating him from mere role model to inspiration.
To Fix Health Care, Fix America First
We can't fix health care because Congress and our legislatures are bought off by the health care industry, and there's no more powerful force that has influence over our lawmakers. If you don't believe it, look at the size of the 2006 lobbying contributions in the table below.
Those Crazy Californians: This Time Its Childhood Diabetes
California has taken a bold step in the fight against childhood diabetes. Even so, its hardly a match for the influence exerted by the fast food industry.
Crimes and Punishments: Zheng and Crawford
07/11/07 Filed In:Public Policy | Financial Conflict
The difference in the way China is treating a public official who was caught taking illicit money and how we treated one of our own caught doing the same thing says everything you need to know about which direction we're headed.
Why Its Unlikely We'll Curb Obesity and Diabetes
Like the health care reform problem, we can't fix the obesity problem because Congress ensures that big contributors, the agribusiness and fast food sectors, can have their way with our kids. Its wishful thinking to believe that we can simply train a generation of children to be disciplined in the face of overwhelming advertising.
Mr. Orszag's Surprise
07/05/07 Filed In:Public Policy | Economics
A report by Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag provides a refreshing, non-partisan, data-driven perspective on the seriousness of the health care crisis.
The Cognitive Dissonance of Conflicted Care
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