Health Care Innovation
Commentary
What you don’t hear about health care
Health care reform will be front-and-center in the presidential debates. It’s a topic that’s full of complicated issues, so it can be hard to cut through all the rhetoric and figure out exactly what each candidate is proposing. So here’s the skinny on five questions that you’ll likely hear many ...
Commentary
The Promise of Telemedicine
The St. Louis (that’s the city Barack Obama he thought he was in a couple of days ago, before he figured out he was in Kansas City) Post-Dispatch ran a very positive article on the success of telemedicine in increasing quality and lowering health care costs. What impressed me was ...
Commentary
Biotech at risk for broadside hit
Ethics bill would be malpractice On the last day of July, the Massachusetts Legislature passed the Act to Promote Cost Containment, Transparency and Efficiency in the Delivery of Quality Health Care. It’s both a mouthful and a mess. If Gov. Deval Patrick doesn’t veto the bill by Aug. 13, the ...
Commentary
HHS Devises Another Strategy for Health Information Technology
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has released a plan to “coordinate the federal government’s health IT efforts, which seek to achieve nationwide implementation of an interoperable health IT infrastructure throughout both the public ...
Health Care
AHIP Cedes Initiative to Government in Health Care Overhaul Proposal
Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a trade association representing more than 1,300 health insurance providers, has offered a proposal it says could help the United States reduce total spending on health care by more than $145 billion in the next decade while improving quality. Experts acknowledge the association’s insight into the ...
Commentary
Congressional Task Force Seeks to Regulate Health Care
U.S. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) are creating a bipartisan task force of White House and Congressional officials that will meet through the end of the year to consider legislative ways to lower health care costs; address the long-term funding issues affecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; ...
Commentary
Making It Harder for Smokers to Get Affordable Health Care
I’ve spilled a lot of virtual ink on San Francisco’s tax-hiking proposal for so-called “universal” health care, the Healthy Access Plan. But driving up costs for small business is hardly the only mischief that the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, and public health supremos are working on. How’s this one? According ...
Commentary
Unbalanced Medical Billing in California: The (Wrong?) Regulator Attacks
If the media want to mock an enterprise that cannot manage the pace of change, they describe its alleged similarities to buggy-whip manufacturers after the dawn of the automobile age. But what happens to the government agency that regulates the buggy-whip manufacturers? Obviously, the forces of innovation and competition cannot ...
Commentary
Tennessee, AT&T Partner to Develop E-Health Info System
The state of Tennessee is partnering with AT&T to develop the first statewide electronic health information system in the United States. The system will enable Tennessee-based medical professionals to share patient records and information through a secure network extending across the entire state. The system will also link to the ...
Health Care
Medicare Means Testing: Test the Deductible, Not the Premium
The looming insolvency of Medicare is disappointingly absent from the list of policy issues on the carte du jour for the November general election. Fortunately, the current Administration recognizes the clear and present danger of Medicare insolvency. “Time is running out. Medicare is drifting toward disaster,”1 said U.S. Secretary of ...
What you don’t hear about health care
Health care reform will be front-and-center in the presidential debates. It’s a topic that’s full of complicated issues, so it can be hard to cut through all the rhetoric and figure out exactly what each candidate is proposing. So here’s the skinny on five questions that you’ll likely hear many ...
The Promise of Telemedicine
The St. Louis (that’s the city Barack Obama he thought he was in a couple of days ago, before he figured out he was in Kansas City) Post-Dispatch ran a very positive article on the success of telemedicine in increasing quality and lowering health care costs. What impressed me was ...
Biotech at risk for broadside hit
Ethics bill would be malpractice On the last day of July, the Massachusetts Legislature passed the Act to Promote Cost Containment, Transparency and Efficiency in the Delivery of Quality Health Care. It’s both a mouthful and a mess. If Gov. Deval Patrick doesn’t veto the bill by Aug. 13, the ...
HHS Devises Another Strategy for Health Information Technology
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has released a plan to “coordinate the federal government’s health IT efforts, which seek to achieve nationwide implementation of an interoperable health IT infrastructure throughout both the public ...
AHIP Cedes Initiative to Government in Health Care Overhaul Proposal
Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a trade association representing more than 1,300 health insurance providers, has offered a proposal it says could help the United States reduce total spending on health care by more than $145 billion in the next decade while improving quality. Experts acknowledge the association’s insight into the ...
Congressional Task Force Seeks to Regulate Health Care
U.S. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) are creating a bipartisan task force of White House and Congressional officials that will meet through the end of the year to consider legislative ways to lower health care costs; address the long-term funding issues affecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; ...
Making It Harder for Smokers to Get Affordable Health Care
I’ve spilled a lot of virtual ink on San Francisco’s tax-hiking proposal for so-called “universal” health care, the Healthy Access Plan. But driving up costs for small business is hardly the only mischief that the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, and public health supremos are working on. How’s this one? According ...
Unbalanced Medical Billing in California: The (Wrong?) Regulator Attacks
If the media want to mock an enterprise that cannot manage the pace of change, they describe its alleged similarities to buggy-whip manufacturers after the dawn of the automobile age. But what happens to the government agency that regulates the buggy-whip manufacturers? Obviously, the forces of innovation and competition cannot ...
Tennessee, AT&T Partner to Develop E-Health Info System
The state of Tennessee is partnering with AT&T to develop the first statewide electronic health information system in the United States. The system will enable Tennessee-based medical professionals to share patient records and information through a secure network extending across the entire state. The system will also link to the ...
Medicare Means Testing: Test the Deductible, Not the Premium
The looming insolvency of Medicare is disappointingly absent from the list of policy issues on the carte du jour for the November general election. Fortunately, the current Administration recognizes the clear and present danger of Medicare insolvency. “Time is running out. Medicare is drifting toward disaster,”1 said U.S. Secretary of ...
