Boston's 2013 municipal election was extraordinary not just as the first open Mayoral race in twenty years or the free-wheeling preliminaries, but because Marty Walsh and Michelle Wu secured victory with very unorthodox neighborhood … [Read more...]
State Votes to Change Its Most Cost-Effective Health Plan [Edited – see header note]
Note: I've left this post unmodified, but there is a factual inaccuracy I want to correct. The law does not require MassHealth to entirely phase out its fee-for-service plan: it can implement an alternative payment plan that keeps … [Read more...]
Cost Control Legislation in Gridlock: Is Hospital Market Power Actually Driving Health Care Costs?
News is getting out that the conference committee tasked with reconciling the health care cost control bills in the House and the Senate has run into areas of gridlock, and is running out of time. One of the key areas of contention is … [Read more...]
Blue Cross ACO Drives Up Costs, Boston Globe Coverage Tries to Spin Savings
The Globe today published a front-page article, "Blue Cross plan shows reduction in spending." The piece is about Blue Cross's new contract for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), and it suffers from one major problem: both academic … [Read more...]
Massachusetts Health Reform Outcomes Paint Troubling Picture for National Reform
Mass-Care and Massachusetts Physicians for a National Health Program today released a comprehensive new report on the outcomes of the Massachusetts Health Reform law, as well as analysis of 5 years of media coverage of the law. The results … [Read more...]
The Year’s Most Predictable “Bombshell”: Accountable Care Organizations Won’t Work
WBUR's online health care blog, "CommonHealth," has a flashy headline article today titled Massachusetts Attorney General Drops Health Reform Bombshell. What's the bombshell? That the state's proposal to control health care costs by … [Read more...]
Mass. Doctors Snub State Health Reform As Model for Country, Pick Single Payer
The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) yesterday released its annual Physician Workforce Study (a survey of 1,000 practicing physicians in the state), which, as in recent years, showed very serious shortages in primary care. However, … [Read more...]
Health Reform Part 2: Cost Control and Accountable Care Organizations
So the task force on Payment Reform issued a report declaring (without actually bother to prove) that our fee-for-service payment system, by which we reimburse physicians per visit or per procedure, was driving up costs by giving them an … [Read more...]
Harvard Pilgrim’s Medicare Bailout & Health Care “Competition”
Medicare Advantage plans were created in 2003 under George W. Bush and a Republican majority in both houses of Congress to privatize Medicare: it allowed seniors to choose a private insurance company to manage their Medicare benefits … [Read more...]
The Intimidating Politics of Controlling Health Care Costs: Why We All Face the Single Payer Reform
An Open Letter to Senator Edward Kennedy Dear Senator Kennedy - The crisis being induced by high and rapidly rising health care costs in the United States is well known. It has become the #1 issue for workers, most businesses, and … [Read more...]