Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
How will health reform affect state health care costs? Will reform bankrupt states as some Republicans say? Or will costs be negligible, as Democrats claims? According to a study by Holahan and Dorn (2010) the answer is somewhere in the middle. Most of the additional costs will come from expanding Medicaid to newly eligible population,…
The Healthcare Economist has previously reviewed different forms of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Implementing ACOs in practice, however, may prove more difficult. How could the government or private insurers incentivize providers to provide integrated care? How can they incentivize providers do perform fewer services and, thus, make less money? An article by Shortell and Casalino…
Medicare and Innovation in the same sentence? Yes indeed. As part of Health Reform [i.e, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)], the government mandated the creation of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMI). What does CMI do? “The stated purpose of the CMI is to test innovative payment and service delivery models…
Kolstad and Kowalski (2010) examine how the Massachusetts individual mandate affected uninsurance rates, hospital and outpatient utilization, and preventive care: “Among the population discharged from the hospital in Massachusetts, the reform decreased uninsurance by 28% relative to its initial level. Increased coverage affected utilization patterns by decreasing length of stay and the number of inpatient…