Today is Thursday, May 17, 2012


Colorado Medicaid budget problems

Colorado’s Medicaid budget problems could be at least partially relieved by Medicaid HMOs, according to an article on today’s Rocky Mountain News op-ed page by Leonard J. Dryer, chairman of the Colorado Access board and CFO of the Children’s Hospital. In “Medicaid HMOs a bargain for state,” he describes how an HMO would provide pre-natal care and counseling to a pregnant beneficiary, saving the state the potential cost of treating a premie with costly medical complications. Problem is the state has a history of under-paying its Medicaid HMOs, and it’s not a good business because it’s vulnerable to irresponsible state legislators seeking cheap budget cuts.

Health cost increases may slow over next decade

Many of us have been saying health care costs can’t continue to soar at current rates, and an article in the new issue of Health Affairs comes to the same conclusion, but perhaps for different reasons than we’ve been thinking about.

Return on investment in health care is tremendous

For anyone whose life has been saved, improved or extended by modern medicine (since the 1940s), the cost of health care is not an issue. The benefits are priceless. And that is why neither politicians nor employers dare deny asscess to even the most costly procedures, although they try rather unsuccessfully to give consumers incentives to think twice about the cost of services before they use them.

 

CoverColorado will boost small groups’ health premiums

Small groups, which mostly are small businesses, will pay much higher premiums as the Colorado General Assembly and Gov. Bill Owens increasingly shift the cost of insuring high-risk residents to CoverColorado under HB03-1163. Costs will be shifted from self-insured employers, insurers that specialize in insuring low-risk individuals and state health care programs. This cost shifting, which would be accelerated under HB03-1163, also would increase hospitals’ bad debt expenses. The hospitals would pass those costs on to small businesses, the biggest users of commercial health insurance.

FEHBP called best model for Medicare Reform

President’s Bush’s proposed Medicare reforms will be modeled on the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which has been analyzed by the General Accounting Office, and Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., of the Heritage Foundation, says the GAO’s analysis shows that FEHBP is the best model for Medicare reform. This is a thorough analysis that will be worth your time.

Association health plans pushed by Sen. Snowe

Maine’s Sen. Snowe is pushing association health plans for small businesses, but they won’t work. This is because no trade association has enough members in any given local market to win price or access consessions.

Academic medical centers must change to survive

The Boston Globe reports analysts think academic medical centers must change to survive. This is an old refrain going back to the early 1980s and even to the beginning of the 20th century.

 

High-cost medical procedures create concerns

Business Week’s Catherine Arnst reports on concerns that expensive new medical procedures and treatments are soaking up limited health care dollars. Many such procedures aren’t worth the high price to society, according to some elete medical researchers and health care policy wonks. But, as usual, they’re being short-sighted and ignoring medical history, which shows that today’s “expensive” procedure has a good chance of becoming tomorrow’s money saver and life saver. See Arnst’s opinion piece (registration required): “Medicine: A cold look at the cost of saving lives, p. 73, Feb. 10, 2003, issue.

WSJ poll shows patients’ experiences with physicians

The latest online Wall St. Journal Online/Harris Interactive poll shows that some 69% of those polled had at least one of 14 “bad experiences” with their doctors, and 31% changed doctors as a result of those experiences.

 

Malpractice insurers abandon rural Wyoming physicians

Health insurance won’t get you care if malpractice insurance premiums are so high that obstetricians can’t afford them and if insurers are not willing to insure them at any price. The Washington Post reports on how rural Wyoming loses obstetrician (registration required).

Medicare reform and drug benefits are doable

Medicare reform and drug benefits will be affordable and possible if the government invests in educating patients and physicians and in increasing the supplies of nurses, pharmacists and allied health care professionals. Under President Bush’s plan, HMOs would increase costs and anger voters and most likely would be bankrupted.
Drug benefits and Medicare reform are

Health Insurance should be community rated

The U.S. needs community rating. See my Health Care Stategic Management column
on community rating.

 

Risk rating health insurance premiums increases costs

When health insurers set premium rates for individuals and small employers by taking the health status of the insured people into account, they frequently price high-risk individuals and small employers out of the market, according to an article in the May-June 1999 issue of Health Affairs.  Download the article here.

 

Health Insurance bill HB03-1013 is anti-small business

Health insurance HB 1013 is anti-small business

The Business Word’s president, Susan Alt, testitied Jan. 20, 2003, before the Colorado House committee, HEWI.

NFIB’s Jackson opposes HB03-1013 risk rating bill

Colorado National Federation of Independent Businesses opposes health insurance rate flexibility and rate banding