Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda
I’ve noted that the Republican candidates’ health care platforms, to the extent they exist at all, are not resonating with ‘regular’ voters, while the other party’s are. A new poll indicates that the gap is growing.
Yes, they are innocent until proven guilty. But it doesn’t look good for Wellcare, the Florida-based Medicaid and Medicare health plan.
And what’s bad for WellCare may be bad for private insurers.
I’ve always been a ‘non-advocate’ of tight fee schedules and broad based discounted networks. Actually it’s a little more than that – I believe mandated across-the-board low fees are counterproductive, ill-conceived, harmful, and may actually increase costs while decreasing access to good providers.
Other than that. they’re fine.
The final presentation at WCRI’s 2007 conference was an analysis of the pre- and post-reform changes after Florida changed its fee schedule on 1/1/2004 (raising it significantly for physicians and decreasing it for facilities).
Back pain is a huge issue in workers comp – not only due to cost, but also because the range of treatment options is seemingly as broad as the number of claimants.
Oregon’s workers comp system is a success.
It is 42nd lowest in insurance rates and among the highest benefits for injured workers in the nation.
Premium rates have not gone up for eighteen (18) years.
Costs have declined 50% during that time.
Here are some of the factors behind that success.
I’m attending the annual WCRI meeting in Boston today and tomorrow, and will be blogging from the meeting. For those not up on all things workers comp, the workers comp research institute is, along with NCCI and the CWCI, among the leading research and education organizations dealing with workers comp.
Perhaps the most important topic at WCRI this year is the evaluation of recent reform initiatives in California and Texas.
Here are the highlights from Texas – numbers are not included as the results are preliminary.
Continue reading WCRI conference report – how’s Texas doing?
Health Affairs is holding a healthcare issues summit in DC on November 1st. Attending will be more than a few of the nation’s health policy experts and policy-setters.
Theme of the day is the future of health care, including S-CHIP’s future direction, a roundtable with Presidential candidates’ health policy advisers, and a CEO roundtable.
With CEOs from Aetna, Merck, Wellpoint, GE HealthCare, HCA, the SEIU, and AARP on stage, I’m hoping we’ll learn a lot more about how they will address health care reform, and the role private industry will take in the discussions about and implementation of that reform.
I’ve been scratching my head over GOP legislators’ affirmation of Pres. Bush’s S-CHIP veto. From a political perspective, and is there any other in Washington, that move looks to be a sure loser. But the GOP’s own pollsters found two issues – immigration and ‘socialized medicine’ that convinced them otherwise .
That is political demagoguery of the worst kind – the bill specifically bans coverage of illegal immigrants, requires coverage of the poorest kids first, and severely restricts coverage for kids in families with incomes above 3x the poverty level.
Fortunately, it looks like the ‘R’s in Congress are starting to have second thoughts about their position on S-CHIP.
It depends on your definition, which depends on your objectivity.
This being an election season, GOP candidates are tripping over themselves to condemn any Democratic candidate’s platform as ‘socialized medicine’. Great soundbite, but what exactly does that mean?
And are the Clinton Edwards Richardson and Obama platforms ‘socialist’ approaches to health care?
Not exactly.
Roy Poses MD is one of the more intelligent and thoughtful commenters on the conflicts of interest that are rife in the world of healthcare. Roy’s latest discusses the issue of comparative effectiveness – evaluating and comparing different drugs to see which does a better job treating specific conditions.
Not surprisingly, big pharma is no fan.
Continue reading Which drugs work? And why don’t we know that?