http://www.joepaduda.com/ A weblog by Joseph Paduda en-us jpaduda@healthstrategyassoc.com 2009-07-03T08:09:51-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001576.html From most Democrats in DC, the reform discussion to date has focused on expanding coverage, and to hell with the financial consequences. On the R side of the aisle, the chorus has wailed endlessly, uselessly, and moronically, about 'government run... 1576@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-07-03T08:09:51-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001575.html is made here by AirAmerica's Sam Seder, as he responds to Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R ME) argument against the public option...... 1575@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-07-02T10:30:47-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001574.html The Senate HELP (Health Education Labor and Pensions) Committee has released the full version of their health reform bill, and pundits are applauding the cost savings scored by CBO. In a piece published last night, Jonathan Cohn noted: "CBO says... 1574@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-07-02T06:52:19-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001573.html Bob Laszewski has an excellent post on one of the key lessons from the Massachusetts experiment - the dangers of allowing people to buy into and drop out of coverage whenever they see fit. Evidently a number of people are... 1573@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-07-01T14:21:15-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001572.html There is no discussion or intention to include workers comp in any health reform package currently under consideration in Washington. Let me be even more clear. No one in the White House or Senate or the House or any staffer... 1572@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Workers Comp 2009-06-30T15:23:09-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001571.html I received several calls about my post a couple weeks ago regarding using peer review to manage PT. Generally, there appears to be some confusion over the article I cited in the post - specifically about its conclusion that peer... 1571@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Workers Comp 2009-06-30T06:43:45-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001570.html There are two key takeaways from the WCIRB report on California's work comp costs (as reported by workcompcentral.com). Medical costs are rising fast, and managed care costs are rising much faster. Medical expenses climbed 7.9% last year, led by a... 1570@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Workers Comp 2009-06-29T07:32:20-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001569.html The Senate Finance and HELP committees are working feverishly to cut the projected cost if health reform to under a hundred billion a year, submitting various and sundry ideas concepts and proposals to the CBO for scoring, hoping that some... 1569@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-06-26T11:34:31-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001568.html The Committee for Economic Development announced earlier this month that they are endorsing the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act. The HAA is a universal coverage, individual mandate program that delivers significant savings over the current system as well as most of... 1568@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-06-25T20:41:37-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001566.html There are specialty managed care offerings for PT, imaging, pharmacy, home health, DME, facilities; even dental. Till now, the only type of medical spend that didn't have a custom answer had bern diagnostic lab. That gap has now been filled.... 1566@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Workers Comp 2009-06-24T11:54:19-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001565.html That's what an airline pilot told me after he asked what I did for a living. To which I responded that France's health care system costs a lot less than ours' and delivers excellent results. End of conversation. I would... 1565@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-06-24T10:02:38-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001564.html The feel-good talk about health reform - covering all Americans, reining in those nasty insurance companies, improving health through prevention and wellness - has all but ended, replaced by reality - as presently conceived, reform is unaffordable. Now, PR firms... 1564@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-06-22T06:29:41-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001563.html Details of the Senate Finance committee's draft plan for health reform were obtained yesterday by Ezra Klein (now of the Washington Post). Here's how Ezra characterizes the draft: "The numbers tell the story. In [the original version that was submitted... 1563@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-06-19T06:54:23-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001561.html For-profit corporations are legally and ethically obligated to first deliver value to their shareholders. That obligation has enormous implications for the delivery, evaluation, and reimbursement of health care services. The impact of this situation was brought home in the film... 1561@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Health Policy 2009-06-18T11:50:16-05:00 http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001562.html 'Managing the Impossible', an analysis of catastrophic case management firm Paradigm's results and comparison of those results to those achieved by work comp insurers, has been sitting on the upper right corner of my desk for a couple of months... 1562@http://www.joepaduda.com/ Workers Comp 2009-06-18T10:39:30-05:00