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Matching entries from Managed Care Matters
Your life without healthcare reform - Part One
The reports from consulting firms Segal and Aon that health benefit costs will jump more than ten percent next year shows exactly what we're in for if reform efforts fail. And by 'reform' I mean reform with strong cost controls....
When health insurance...isn't
Friday's New York Times had an excellent piece about the major changes occurring in the type of policies gaining traction in the group health insurance market - consumer-directed health plans with high deductibles. According to the NYT's Milt Freudenheim, more...
Consumer-directed care done right
As I've noted repeatedly, there is a place for consumerism in health care, but it is by no means a panacea. And many CDH Plans are poorly designed and will likely lead to higher costs down the road - studies...
Suit day
Today's a "suit day"; one of those increasingly-frequent days where business demands require something a bit more upscale than the usual. Today's event is the Piper Jaffray Healthcare Investor conference in NYC, where I'm on a panel discussing Consumer-directed health...
Has the CDHP movement peaked?
The latest data shows that while there has been some growth in the two types of consumer-directed health plans, it is not 'statistically significant' (3.8% of covered workers are enrolled in these plans in 2007, up from 2.7% in 2006)....
Humana's good effort
Carol Gentry of the Tampa Tribune has authored one of the more accessible pieces on the hows and whats of hospital price variation. Carol's piece illustrates two key issues - the data is available, and consumers aren't using it....
Medical cost trends and consumer-directed health plans
Several sources indicate health care cost inflation is now running about 7%, with the latest coming from Towers Perrin. This jibes with other reports, and is consistent with last year's final figures. As always, the data underlying the overall result...
What voters want
One in five voters named health care as the issue of most concern to them in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll: while health care is the top domestic issue, it is well behind Iraq as THE top issue. But...
Will consumer-directed health care make it?
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...
Fixing consumer-directed health care
Those who find problems should identify solutions as well. My post last week about the "pre-lash" against consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) identified a number of problems - but for all their warts, CDHPs, and particularly HSAs, do have a very...
The consumer-directed "pre-lash"
A backlash is what happens after something occurs. That being the case, a "pre-lash" is a "reaction" to something before it occurs. Awkward, but accurate when describing what's happening with consumer-directed health care....
You're it. No, you're it. No...
Consumer directed health plans will make all of us better users of the health care system. We'll shop for price, be careful about what procedures we get from whom for how much how often. We'll bargain, examine data, and carefully...
Fixing CDHPs
As I've said a few times before, today's consumer-directed health care plans (CDHP) are not much different from the $100 deductible major medical plans of forty years ago. (That $100 is now equivalent to over $600) Although advocates loudly proclaim...
health care consumerism update
There hasn't been much in the popular press about consumer-directed health care of late. What a relief. That doesn't mean we can bury the idea, as economists and policy makers of a libertarian bent are going to keep returning to...
Health care dollars - Who spends how much
OK, so I've been a little obsessed with the First Health-Concentra deal. Several clients will be directly affected by the merger, and their priorities are mine. But I've been ignoring the larger world, including a report published in Health Affairs...
Bush's blithe ignorance
So a lot of folks are finding good things in Pres. Bush's plan to use tax policy to help uninsured people get health insurance. Not me. I see it as the worst kind of incrementalism, on a par with consumer-directed...
Improving Wyden's Healthy Americans Act
There is one significant blind spot in Sen. Ron Wyden's (D OR) Healthy Americans Act - because the benefit plan is based on the one enjoyed by Congresspeople and Federal employees, it fails to consider that many Americans can't afford...
What's really happening with consumer-directed health care
The body of knowledge concerning consumer directed health plans is increasing steadily, and unfortunately for advocates, it does not appear to include much in the way of good news....
Patient responsibility/costs/quality
If the recent contretemps in the mass media and blog-o-sphere about provider quality measures, patient responsibility and cost issues are any indication, a lot of folks are thinking hard and talking loud about these issues. Here's a synopsis of some...
I'm so done with consumerism
The problem with consumer-directed health plans as presently constructed is fundamental. They will not work. They miss the target entirely, mis-understand the problem, and, if taken seriously, will distract from getting to a real solution. On the other hand, when...
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