Medicare Over-Payments & Medical Errors [ez_date] Much is being made this week of the public release of physician-specific Medicare payments. Given that this has been legally prohibited for many decades by legal proceedings initiated by physicians, the backlash from physicians is predictably vociferous (see “None of Your Business: Docs React to Medicare Data Release“). One […]
Healthcare Fraud – It’s Everywhere
Healthcare Fraud In Your Backyard [ez_date] Most Americans are unaware of the extent to which healthcare “fraud and abuse” permeates much of medical practice. This is particularly true in regions of the country with weak state regulation of physician ownership or investment in medical facilities to which they refer patients. According to the Federal Bureau […]
If Only Obamacare Empowered Patients – Part 2
What Obamacare 2.0 Might Mean for REAL Health Reform [ez_date] Part 1 of this post explored three things Obamacare fails to do that would empower patients to be smarter consumers of expensive and often dangerous medical services. Part 2 explores how these and related measures would help us get a better handle on healthcare spending […]
Obamacare’s Core Failing Is Its Timidity
A Bigger, Bolder Obamacare Was Needed A recent article at MedPage Today reported on an expert discussion about Obamacare’s critical need to repair its online portal at healthcare.gov so those Americans wishing to purchase qualified health plans on the exchange can do so by December 1st. This would leave them only two weeks to secure […]
Can Low -Tech Medical Breakthroughs Save Obamacare?
What’s Peanut Butter Got to Do With Obamacare? I tweeted this morning about a report of how a young medical researcher at the University of Florida demonstrated that a peanut butter test of patients experiencing cognitive decline was able to help predict Alzheimer’s Disease. This low-tech breakthrough got more retweets than usual, which prompted me […]
Medicare-For-All: Our Sick Healthcare System Requires Radical Surgery
Medicare-For-All a Distant Hope As we near the major phase of Obamacare’s implementation in 2014, there’s no shortage of carping critics from the right hell-bent on stymieing it at every turn. This despite early signs that it’s working to lower insurance premiums in states that have embraced it. What does this political intransigence in the […]
Can Bipartisan Healthcare Solutions Survive the Obamacare Backlash?
Hyper-Partisan Politics Surrounding Obamacare Suggest Not The latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine has an interesting post-Obamacare report from the Bipartisan Policy Center. It’s optimistically entitled “Prescription for Patient-Centered Care and Cost Containment”. It’s optimistic because of the initial favorable responses it’s received from both sides of the political aisle. Its authors […]
Are ACOs a Bet on the Wrong Horse?
ACOs May Improve Care Without Saving Money [ez_date] This week’s Accountable Care Organization (ACO) shindig has prompted some criticisms of the ACO model as a vehicle for significantly addressing America’s problem of runaway healthcare spending. I’ve made similar observations in my book on Obamacare, so I can’t say I’m surprised that the evidence of cost […]
Hospital Charges and the Art of Obfuscation
Hospital Charges Even CFOs Can’t Explain It’s no secret that hospital charges in America are an indecipherable mess. Researchers at the Dartmouth Atlas Project – who I cite in Our Healthcare Sucks – have been documenting hospital charges and treatment disparities among hospitals and their medical staffs for decades. But this week’s announcement by the U.S. […]
The Problem With Medicare Isn’t Medicare – Part 2
The Ryan/AMA Medicare Plan Would Accelerate Healthcare Spending It’s not that Medicare is less efficient than private insurers – as the Ryan/AMA plan for Medicare vouchers assumes; quite the opposite, in fact. Which means that dumping future Medicare enrollees into a fragmented and inherently less efficient private insurance system would only compound the problem of unaffordable healthcare […]
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