Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda
Health reform is coming. This looks to be a huge win for private insurers – millions of potential new members signing up for mandated coverage. Unless, of course, the industry proves itself completely incompetent.
That’s a real possibility.
The GM-UAW health care deal is momentous. And not just because it saves GM a lot of money and transfers the liability for the UAW’s health benefits from GM to the union.
The tectonic shift is the change from a ‘defined benefit’ to a ‘defined contribution’ program. The UAW has essentially agreed to a cap on future health care costs. Now they will have to figure out how to deliver on members’ expectations without going broke.
Not snow, nor wind, nor dark of night, nor being at the Aspen Health Institute has prevented Jane Hiebert-White from hosting this biweek’s edition of Health Wonk Review.
And the furor over Bush’s veto of S-CHIP makes for some heated posting.
Pres. Bush has been unfairly maligned by the ‘drive-by media’. He does have a cogent, well-thought-out, reasonable approach to solving the problem of uninsured children.
You just have to listen to this.
As I’ve noted before, there are clear differences between the GOP and Democratic Presidential candidates on health care.
And it looks like the Dems’ approach is a heckuva lot closer to what regular voters want than that espoused by the Republican candidates.
Continue reading Win the nomination, lose the election – the GOP on health care
TPS, the last third party biller standing, has wasted no time. Just hours (well, perhaps a couple days) after their acquisition of rival WorkingRx was announced, TPS launched their new strategy. They are positioning themselves as a vertically-integrated pharmacy solution integrating first fill capture with a full-service PBM.
When WalMart introduced the $4 prescription program, my commentary headline was “much ado about not much”. In retrospect, too strong a statement that early on.
The initial program covered less than 1% of the scripts filled at WalMart, and was widely seen as a more of a marketing ploy than major new program. To WalMart’s credit, they quickly increased the number of drugs covered and participating stores; before the latest news fully one-fifth of scripts filled at wallyworld were for $4 drugs.
With the benefit of hindsight, it looks like the program has had two rather significant effects – dramatically reducing drug costs for some individuals, and (possibly) driving down drug costs nation-wide.
Now I’m thinking this may just be the start of a major expansion of WalMart into the health care sector.
The ‘Economist‘ (an intelligently conservative publication) finds fault with Pres. Bush for his stubborn refusal to expand S-CHIP, you know W’s losing it.
Here’s a quote from their piece (sub req)
An aversion to government-run health-care programmes and new taxes–a tobacco-tax increase would fund the SCHIP expansion–may also be driving Mr Bush’s opposition. Or he may simply be trying to re-establish his credentials as a fiscal conservative.
Whatever the truth, the White House has made an inauspicious start of its fight with Congress over federal spending.
Diabetes, congestive heart failure, and heart disease are increasingly conditions of the poor. And the poorer one is, the more common the condition.(free reg req)
Most health plans have little experience dealing with poor folks with chronic health problems.
They’d better start learning.
Premium increases are low in part because benefits have been decreased and employee contributions increased. Chris made this point yesterday in a comment on my post about low trend rates.
Is that really happening?
No, yes and hell yes.
