Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
A paper by Hsia et al. (2023) shows that California emergency department capacity is not keeping up with demand and is increasingly concentrated in fewer facilities. Using data from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information and US Census, the authors find that: In the prepandemic period (2011-2019), the total population of California…
No, this is not coming nation-wide, but it may be on its way in California. Kaiser Health News reports: A provision in California’s newly approved state budget will eliminate the asset test for the 2 million Californians enrolled in both Medi-Cal and Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older and people…
A few updates on COVID-19 from where I am living. First while we see a dramatic decline in COVID-19 infections and deaths, there is a fair amount of regional variation within California. The Sacramento Bee reports that: The average number of new COVID infections reported each day dropped by an astounding 98% from December to…
That is the title of an article by Angela Maas in Radar on Specialty pharmacy (reprinted here). A few excerpts: “Although state governments frequently pay for health care through programs such as Medicaid, in the past, state governments have not manufactured drugs,” says Jason Shafrin, vice president of health economics at PRECISIONheor. “Thus, this is a…
There have been a number of moves to try to move California towards a single payer system. A single-payer bill, Senate Bill 562, was offered up last year. Some Silicon Valley tech workers are trying to move voters towards a single payer system as well. The question is, can we afford it? This is the…
First the good news, it appears that the Covered California marketplace is working. People are selecting lower cost options and forcing insurers to compete. Gabel et al. (2017) state that …the average purchased price for all plans was 11.6 percent less than the average offered price in 2014, 13.2 percent less in 2015, and 15.2 percent less in…
The Affordable Care Act requires all individuals to be offered the same premium regardless of health status. Although there are some ratings bands based on age and smoking status, most people who purchase insurance on health insurance exchanges receive the same premium for any given insurance product from any given insurance company. The insurance products…
Society often likes to ignore the challenges faced by citizens with serious mental illness (SMI), especially those who are homeless. California, however, has funded an initiative to help this vulnerable population. On November 2, 2004, California voters approved Proposition 63, which was signed into law as the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA). The MHSA applied…
Why is that? Because in 2006 California passed the Hospital Fair Pricing Act. Melnick and Fonkych (2013) describe the bill as follows. The Hospital Fair Pricing Act…mandated that hospitals develop formal, written financial assistance policies and limit the prices they charge uninsured patients with low to moderate incomes…Under the law, hospitals must limit the amounts they collect from…
The California Healthcare Foundation has produced two market studies of the Los Angeles and San Diego health care markets. Key findings from the Los Angeles study include: The area’s dense urban environment has given rise to a large, fragmented health care market. Health care reform and a drop in private insurance enrollment have led to…