Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Find out how much Medicare and Medicaid cost you in taxes. CABG report cards do not influence referral patterns. Overrated cost savings. Workers comp insurers’ biggest issues. What is driving Medicaid cost growth? Health Reform made simple (with cartoons!) Can rationing spur competition? Health Reform to destroy child-only health policy market?
In early 2008, Oregon expanded it’s Medicaid eligibility. To take advantage of these new benefits, 85,000 individuals signed up. Oregon’s budget, however, only had enough money to fund Medicaid coverage for 30,000. In a researcher’s dream case, Oregon decided to select the 30,000 eligible to apply for coverage using random assignment. Because this policy in…
Russell Hutchinson presents this week’s glorious round-up of risky posts at moneyblog.
John Holahan has a nice RWJ issue brief summarizing how health reform will affect the federal budget. This spreadsheet I made has a summary of the CBO projections. The CBO claims that over the next 10 years, expansions to Medicaid and CHIP and the subsidies for the health insurance exchange will increase the deficit by…
One of President Obama’s biggest initiatives as part of health reform was to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. Today, I will discuss how the Medicaid program fights fraud at the federal level. Because Medicaid is state-run, the States have typically been the ones responsible for ensuring efficient Medicaid operations. However, the…
“Across the nation, sizeable and forceful groups–a Medicaid medical industrial complex–support welfare medicine, many of them becoming entirely or partially dependent on its funding for their financial viability. Their reliance on the low-income health program puts them at risk of adverse political decisions, but also drives them to exert disproportionate influence over policymakers. Vested interests–professionals,…
This policy brief provides the answer. One interesting finding is how the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate may put a bind on poor, legal immigrants. “Legal immigrants with less than five years of legal permanent residency will face the same requirement as native born U.S. citizens to have health insurance coverage. However, legal immigrants…
Dr. Oz’s Colonoscopy. Health reform allows workers to keep their current health plans…sometimes. Fun Graphs: aging nations and your county’s health. Tragedy at my alma mater. Confidential Medicaid policy advice. 8th largest economy in the world without a budget.
The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is up at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. This particular edition has the theme of politics, money and health.
Electronic medical records have been touted as producing large gains in efficiency. In fact, Kaiser Permanente has invested $3 billion in EMR. One drawback of EMR, however, is that the value of second opinions may fall. Instead of coming to a new physician with a clean slate or at the least seeking a fresh interpretation…