Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
P4P. Evidence-based medicine. Insurers and policymakers want to be sure that patient insurance premiums are being used towards high quality medical care. One example of quality evaluation in practice is the Apgar Score. In 1952, Dr. Virginia Apgar developed this metric to evaluate the health of newborns. Newborns receive a 0, 1, or 2 score on 5…
Bob Laszewski has a great posts on 5 false “solutions” to reduce health care costs. These are: EMR: Making electronic medical records universal will greatly improve health care quality, but the impact on cost will be minor. Better quality care can reduce iatrogenic injuries and reduce cost, but the cost reduction–if any–will likely be small…
Continuing with yesterdays theme of fixing America’s fragmented health care system, I will review some of the Commonwealth Fund’s policy suggestions to improve health care quality. Expansion of P4P. While I support P4P in theory, in practice, it will be very difficult to apply. P4P rewards only measurable components of health care quality. Since much…
Barack Obama and John McCain both believe that they know how to improve the American health care system. A policy brief by Michael Tanner has nice summary of the two candidates policies. I will review some of this paper today. Obama’s general health care policy Obama goal is to expand government provided health care and…
The Washington Post reports that U.S. Health Care [is] Still Ill. This conclusion comes from a report from the Commonwealth Fund titled Results from the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2008. Even though the U.S. still spends more money on medical care than any other nation, performance on the Scorecard has not improved…
This is how a very interesting article (“P4P is changing me“) in Medical Economics begins. The essay won an award in the 2006 Doctors’ Writing Contest. The author of the story is a physician who has been under much financial pressure of late; a divorce, med school loans, a mortgage, alimony and child support were…
This week’s edition of the Health Wonk Review is overflowing with useful information. Can there be too much of a good thing, you ask? Well for those of you who don’t have the time to read every article in this week’s HWR edition, I’ve narrowed the posts into a few, easy-to-use categories. BEST POSTS OF…
Local governments provide a variety of services which are highly valued by their residents. From police protection to waste disposal, from snow plowing to utility meter reading, the local government is charged with providing the infrastructure necessary for a smooth functioning economy and a high level quality of life. But should local governments outsource these…
The Washington Post reports today (“U.S. Senators…“) that 5 Democratic and 5 Republican senators have signed a letter requesting that President Bush “fix the American health care system.” What does fixing the health care system entail for senators Kohl (D-WI), Thune (R-SD), Wyden (D-OR), DeMint (R-SC), Conrad (D-ND), Bennett (R-UT), Salazar (D-CO), Lott (R-MS), Cantwell…
Media appearance & Cited in the news Radio Appearance on National Public Radio Here & Now to discuss “Premium Price Surges Raise Questions About Obamacare’s Future” (December 31, 2016) In The Economist as one of the top 94 online influencers on the debate about Obama’s healthcare reform (9 September 2009) Research Cited by the New…