Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda
I’m covering the “Take Back America” conference in DC this week. It’s one of the leading progressive confabs, attended by everyone from subscribers to “the Weekly Worker” to green investment funds to Families USA to Sens. Edwards, Obama, Clinton, and Klobuchar to MoveOn.org. I’m here to hear what progressives are saying about health care and health reform.
So far, it appears the short answer is “not much”.
Continue reading Where’s the progressive movement on health care?
Ok, time to get back to examining Coventry. The second quarter earnings report is out, and things are looking good on the commercial side. I’ll look at that in detail later; for now, the work comp business is top of mind after the Concentra deal.
David Williams has put together the best of the policy wonk-o-sphere in his edition of Health Wonk Review. To “know what you don’t know”, head on over.
OK, here’s a post for the workers comp folks, laden with industry acronyms and inside scoop.
I’m at the AmComp annual meeting; its in Chicago this year, ably hosted by Aon. There was a particularly interesting session yesterday on underwriting in a soft workers comp market, moderated by Kathy Muedder of Selective. Rob Purdy of AIG’s American Home, Karl Amidon of Aon’s reinsurance group, and Bob McFadden of Munich Re America were on the panel. Here’s the report.
I don’t see how – because we’ll still have to pay for the uninsured. I’ve been mulling this over since reading a post on Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review. Bob’s post points out that a large enough group spreads risk well enough to help keep insurance affordable.
My take is coverage has to be mandated in order to prevent cost-shifting.
Continue reading Can we control cost without universal coverage?
For a quick and very precise review of the differences between and among Presidential candidates’ health care reform initiatives (or lack thereof) head over to Bob Laszewski’s blog.
The statistics are starting to come in and they aren’t pretty; Consumer directed health plans’ growth is all but stalled. Despite advocates claims to the contrary, employers are just not buying into CDHPs.
According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 19% of people with a choice of CDHPs or traditional forms of coverage choose CDHPs. And most of those folks (71% to be precise) don’t put any money into their accounts.
Continue reading Will consumer-directed health care make it?
My post on the efforts by WCPA and others to roll back parts of the NY workers comp reforms has generated a lot of criticism by individuals who appear to consider themselves advocates for the injured worker.
My motives, intelligence, experience, and perspective have all been questioned, with varying degrees of civility. The personal assaults are not helpful nor are they constructive.
After going thru a major spring office cleaning and overhaul, I found a really intriguing report buried under books and papers. Well, intriguing for health care geeks…
The combination of two statistics adds a lot of clarity to the US health insurance picture. The two, health care inflation and the uninsured rate, have been combined into the HEMI (healthcare economic misery index). The HEMI is both descriptive and revealing, especially when tracked over time and used to compare states.
The efforts by third party billers and their partners to overturn a key part of the NY workers comp reform package appear to be gathering strength. Two legislators have introduced a bill that would kill the ability of payers to direct injured workers to specific pharmacies.
The rationale, that the pharmacies would somehow deny scripts, is ludicrous.
