Google has been thought to be considering working on ways in which people could store their health records on Google and have them readily available for personal needs. It has been quite careful about letting outsiders in on its plans but has just taken action that could suggest this idea is gaining traction.
Google recently appointed its new Health Advisory Council and it is comprised of some 22 very heavy hitters:
Dean Ornish, Founder and President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute
Douglas Bell, Research Scientist, RAND Health, RAND Corporation
Delos M. Cosgrove, CEO, Cleveland Clinic
Molly Coye, CEO, HealthTech
Dan Crippen, Former Congressional Budget Office Director & Reagan White House Asst.
Linda M. Dillman, EVP, Risk Management, Benefits & Sustainability, Wal-Mart
John Halamka, CIO, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center & Harvard Medical School
Bernadine Healy, Former NIH Head, Health Editor & Columnist, U.S.News & World Report
Bernie Hengesbaugh, COO, American Medical Association
Douglas E. Henley, EVP, American Academy of Family Physicians
David Kessler, Former FDA Commissioner, Vice Chancellor-Medical Affairs & Dean, School of Medicine, UCSF
John Lumpkin, Sr. VP, Director of Health Care Group, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
John Rother, Group Exec. Officer of Policy & Strategy, AARP
Anna-Lisa Silvestre, VP, Online Services, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.
Greg Simon, President, FasterCures
Mark D. Smith, President & CEO, The California HealthCare Foundation
Paul Tang, Internist & VP, Chief Medical Officer, Palo Alto Medical Foundation & Chairman, Board of Directors, American Medical Informatics Association
Sharon Terry, President & CEO, Genetic Alliance
John Tooker, EVP & CEO, American College of Physicians
Doug Ulman, President, Lance Armstrong Foundation
Robert M. Wachter, Professor of Medicine, UCSF, Assoc. Chairman, UCSF Department of Medicine, Chief – Medical Service, UCSF Medical Center
Matthew Zachary, Founder & Executive Director, The I’m Too Young for This! Cancer Foundation for Young Adults
The private sector is stepping up its game!
Google is among the most innovative organizations in the world and should not be undersold as to the potential for success in this undertaking…if that’s what it is.
Showing posts with label Health Care Cost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health Care Cost. Show all posts
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Uninsured In America...
Stuart Browning has produced at least three pieces depicting issues within the health care debate.
The piece titled Uninsured in America is found here .
I hope you'll agree that this needs to be shared with as many people as you can get it to as quickly as you can.
We'll look at two more over the next few days.
The piece titled Uninsured in America is found here .
I hope you'll agree that this needs to be shared with as many people as you can get it to as quickly as you can.
We'll look at two more over the next few days.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Consumers Demand Transparency...
A recent survey (completed in February 2007) conducted for the PNC Financial Services Group by the Boston-based research firm of Chadwick Martin Bailey found that consumers (especially those with high deductible health plans) want more transparency in health care administration.
The survey was based on telephone calls conducted with 150 executives from U.S. hospitals or health systems, 50 executives from insurance organizations and an online survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers.
Six of ten people who have high deductible health plans strongly agree that their families have become more conscious of health care costs, and some 22% said they compared doctors and hospitals to find the best value for their money.
This finding supports the changing environment that is being brought about by consumer directed health care. As consumers are reintroduced to the process of buying their health care, they are quickly becoming more aware of costs and outcomes. As the consumer directed movement continues to expand, it is becoming clear that the marketplace is responding with pricing transparency, better knowledge of outcomes and generally more informed patients.
Hospitals are working diligently to improve their overall ranking in terms of outcomes. Physician groups are focusing on patient communication. Entrepreneurial companies are developing point-of-sale claims pricing systems to enable patients to learn true costs and to pay for services with debit cards.
Employers are very conscious of wellness programs as a part of the solution to bring health care costs down, thus reducing the cost of insurance benefit plans while gaining a healthier and more productive workforce.
Employers are learning if they don’t already know it, that they must share the premium savings with their employees through funding of Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Accounts. Those who used the high deductible health plans primarily as vehicles to shift costs are coming to understand that this was a short-sighted approach.
Consumer directed health care is maturing and expanding. That frightens some in government and industry. Some in government don’t relish the idea of empowering the individual since people begin to understand that they don’t need big government to take care of them.
Some in industry and labor circles are similarly wary of these programs. Again, control of members can be threatened when the individuals begin to make their own decisions.
Some in the health care industries are not anxious to see patient independence since they are comfortable with the status quo. However, those same health care providers are being forced to change. They will either adapt to this new era, or risk being relegated to the junk heap as another entity that failed to take the necessary action.
There is a growing tide sweeping over the health care landscape and it is called consumerism.
The survey was based on telephone calls conducted with 150 executives from U.S. hospitals or health systems, 50 executives from insurance organizations and an online survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers.
Six of ten people who have high deductible health plans strongly agree that their families have become more conscious of health care costs, and some 22% said they compared doctors and hospitals to find the best value for their money.
This finding supports the changing environment that is being brought about by consumer directed health care. As consumers are reintroduced to the process of buying their health care, they are quickly becoming more aware of costs and outcomes. As the consumer directed movement continues to expand, it is becoming clear that the marketplace is responding with pricing transparency, better knowledge of outcomes and generally more informed patients.
Hospitals are working diligently to improve their overall ranking in terms of outcomes. Physician groups are focusing on patient communication. Entrepreneurial companies are developing point-of-sale claims pricing systems to enable patients to learn true costs and to pay for services with debit cards.
Employers are very conscious of wellness programs as a part of the solution to bring health care costs down, thus reducing the cost of insurance benefit plans while gaining a healthier and more productive workforce.
Employers are learning if they don’t already know it, that they must share the premium savings with their employees through funding of Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Accounts. Those who used the high deductible health plans primarily as vehicles to shift costs are coming to understand that this was a short-sighted approach.
Consumer directed health care is maturing and expanding. That frightens some in government and industry. Some in government don’t relish the idea of empowering the individual since people begin to understand that they don’t need big government to take care of them.
Some in industry and labor circles are similarly wary of these programs. Again, control of members can be threatened when the individuals begin to make their own decisions.
Some in the health care industries are not anxious to see patient independence since they are comfortable with the status quo. However, those same health care providers are being forced to change. They will either adapt to this new era, or risk being relegated to the junk heap as another entity that failed to take the necessary action.
There is a growing tide sweeping over the health care landscape and it is called consumerism.
Monday, June 4, 2007
National Association of Health Underwriters Offers SCHIP Position...
Congress is currently in the midst of reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the state/federal block grant program that funds health insurance coverage for low-income children. It is this program that funds Wisconsin's BadgerCare plan for children. The National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU) feels that during the reauthorization process, Congress has a great opportunity to make it simpler for states to voluntarily use SCHIP dollars to subsidize private group coverage for eligible children who have access to such private coverage through their parent's employer.
Doing so would have the following benefits:
More families would accept employer-sponsored coverage for their children, lowering the number of uninsured children.
The administrative burden on low-income families would be lessened, as families could be covered together on the same health insurance plan.
It would reduce the “crowd-out” of the private market that occurs when parents decline employer-sponsored coverage in favor of SCHIP coverage for their dependents.
It would lower costs by taking advantage of any premium dollars employers are willing to contribute toward their eligible employee dependent premiums—money that is now often “left on the table.”
It would also reduce SCHIP costs because the risk associated with covering the children with employer-sponsored coverage would be borne by the private market plan rather than the public program.
Licensed health insurance producers, who are already helping millions of business owners purchase health insurance coverage for their employees nationally, could provide outreach and enrollment assistance at virtually no cost to the SCHIP program.
We believe this is a wise approach and urge that our state Senators and Representatives give careful consideration to these points.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Public Policy Forum Discusses Health Reform…
The Public Policy Forum held a panel discussion in Milwaukee on Wednesday, May 9th to discuss health reform in Wisconsin. Three proposals were discussed:
Wisconsin Health Care Partnership Plan which is the single payer plan developed by the Wisconsin AFL-CIO. It would be financed by a flat tax that this group estimates to be $340 per month per employee. Seems like that is a number we heard in the Massachusetts “Connector” plan debate…that has increased several times over the past months. It claims that it will reduce the 27% of every premium dollar going to administer health care insurance today. We seem to have a disagreement on that number, as well; since our information suggests the real cost is closer to 12% as borne out by federal studies.
Fortunately, this plan appears to be DOA from all indications.
The Wisconsin Health Plan which has been developed largely by David Riemer. It tends to use the state employee program model and would be funded by a tax on all employers. Last I heard, the proponents of this plan were talking about maybe a 12% tax, but only when pushed to give an estimate. Our information suggests that this tax would be much closer to 17% at the outset. The plans would be limited to those selected by “a commission” and each person would be required to select coverage from that list. This smacks of too much government control for my tastes. It also will drive businesses out of business and that certainly won’t be good for heath care or anything else.
BadgerCare Plus is the plan espoused by Governor Doyle. It would supposedly expand health insurance coverage to 98% of our state citizens. First, that still leaves 2% that are uninsured and that isn’t a real good solution since it would retain cost-shifting to the insured. We need to be sure everyone is covered. This plan piggybacks on federally-funded programs that are intended for children, would subsidize families with incomes beneath a certain point, etc. Our state already has more adults covered in the children’s health plan than it does children. The poverty level that determines subsidization is already set at twice the federal program’s original intent and there are those who would increase it again. There are as many as 200,000 people in our state that qualify for the various government programs who simply do not enroll. Why will this be different? And, what happens when federal funding begins to be restricted due to the increasing costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Will providers’ reimbursements, already too low in this program, be reduced further?
Any successful reform plan must involve the effort of the private market and of government. Government’s role should be that of support, working with the private sector to get control of costs, and using its influence to assure transparency in those costs, transparency in the quality of care and transparency in the outcomes of the providers of that care. The consumer will take care of the rest.
Basic health care plans must be made available. Tax-advantaged programs must be featured. New tax-advantaged programs such as a Health Coverage Account should be made available to help low income people to be able to afford the basic health plans.
That sounds like a sensible solution.
Wisconsin Health Care Partnership Plan which is the single payer plan developed by the Wisconsin AFL-CIO. It would be financed by a flat tax that this group estimates to be $340 per month per employee. Seems like that is a number we heard in the Massachusetts “Connector” plan debate…that has increased several times over the past months. It claims that it will reduce the 27% of every premium dollar going to administer health care insurance today. We seem to have a disagreement on that number, as well; since our information suggests the real cost is closer to 12% as borne out by federal studies.
Fortunately, this plan appears to be DOA from all indications.
The Wisconsin Health Plan which has been developed largely by David Riemer. It tends to use the state employee program model and would be funded by a tax on all employers. Last I heard, the proponents of this plan were talking about maybe a 12% tax, but only when pushed to give an estimate. Our information suggests that this tax would be much closer to 17% at the outset. The plans would be limited to those selected by “a commission” and each person would be required to select coverage from that list. This smacks of too much government control for my tastes. It also will drive businesses out of business and that certainly won’t be good for heath care or anything else.
BadgerCare Plus is the plan espoused by Governor Doyle. It would supposedly expand health insurance coverage to 98% of our state citizens. First, that still leaves 2% that are uninsured and that isn’t a real good solution since it would retain cost-shifting to the insured. We need to be sure everyone is covered. This plan piggybacks on federally-funded programs that are intended for children, would subsidize families with incomes beneath a certain point, etc. Our state already has more adults covered in the children’s health plan than it does children. The poverty level that determines subsidization is already set at twice the federal program’s original intent and there are those who would increase it again. There are as many as 200,000 people in our state that qualify for the various government programs who simply do not enroll. Why will this be different? And, what happens when federal funding begins to be restricted due to the increasing costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Will providers’ reimbursements, already too low in this program, be reduced further?
Any successful reform plan must involve the effort of the private market and of government. Government’s role should be that of support, working with the private sector to get control of costs, and using its influence to assure transparency in those costs, transparency in the quality of care and transparency in the outcomes of the providers of that care. The consumer will take care of the rest.
Basic health care plans must be made available. Tax-advantaged programs must be featured. New tax-advantaged programs such as a Health Coverage Account should be made available to help low income people to be able to afford the basic health plans.
That sounds like a sensible solution.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Mandated Health Care
Wisconsin has added certain required coverage for health insurance policies over the course of many years. There are more than twenty such requirements or “mandates” as they’re known in Wisconsin. There are even more such mandates across all fifty states.
Mandates have the effect of adding to the overall cost of health care. In some cases this happens because such services were not covered earlier or only partially covered. Mandates can and do make access to such care easier without significant personal cost. Health care costs drive health insurance costs, not the other way around as much of our media would have us believe. Mandates increase our health care costs. And that adds to our crisis in health care.
Mandates viewed individually appear to be good things. The following list shows those that are required in Wisconsin (Fact Sheet on Mandated Benefits in Health Insurance Policies, Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, PI-019 [R 01/2007]):
Optometric Service Access, Chiropractic Service Access,
Nurse Practitioner Access, Dental Service Access,
Adopted Child Coverage, Handicapped Child Coverage,
Home Health Care Access, Skilled Nursing Care,
Kidney Disease Coverage, Mammography Examinations,
Newborn Infant Coverage, Grandchild Coverage,
Diabetes Equipment & Supplies, Genetic Testing Restrictions,
HIV Treatment Drug Access Lead Screening (for children under 6),
TMJ Disorders, Breast Reconstruction,
Child Immunizations, Certain Clinical Cancer Trial Costs,
Maternity Coverage (if provided for any insured, it must be available to all),
Nervous and Mental Disorders, Alcoholism, and other Drug Abuse,
Hospital/Ambulatory Surgery Charges & Anesthetics for Certain Dental Care
(Self-funded [ERISA] plans by a city, village, county, or school district plans may be included in these regulations.)
Reviewing these individual mandates, we begin to get a better idea of how they might increase costs. Chiropractic-type services, for example, were covered originally only if delivered by a medical doctor. If we wanted to see a chiropractor, we did and we paid for it from our pockets. Chiropractors lobbied to gain the right to engage in the delivery of these services through health insurance policies and ultimately won that right. Unit costs were reduced somewhat with the new competition, but increased access to these services, coupled with advertising by the newly approved providers, likely more than offset whatever unit cost savings resulted.
The federal law that enabled health maintenance organizations also added the requirements for some of the now-mandated items in the interests of promoting preventative care (such as vision examinations). Labor-management bargaining contributed to the addition of benefits over the years and that led to certain of the mandates. Insurers were complicit since they added more such benefits in the attempt to differentiate themselves. Health care provider-to-consumer advertising also had a significant impact on health care mandates and increased costs.
Some states have begun to permit health policies referred to as “mandate-light” policies to be sold within their borders. These policies contain fewer mandates, or completely eliminate mandates, thus reducing the cost of those policies, and thereby making health insurance more affordable. The total cost for mandates in Wisconsin is estimated at from 20% of premiums to as much as 32% of premiums.
A valid question is: Should Wisconsin permit mandate-light policies to be sold? If that answer is yes, then the question becomes, which mandates should be excluded? The job of deciding which are in and which are out would be difficult. [Almost as difficult as a government run program deciding what to cover and what not to cover.] Self-insured plans in the private sector could provide some benchmarks for what is provided to employees by a majority of the self insured companies.
If mandate-light plans were permitted, would insurers still be willing and able to offer full mandate policies? Would they be able to price those to anticipate the increased costs of claims being spread across a smaller segment of society [adverse selection]? Would the state promulgate new laws requiring both types of policies? If both types were required, the premium cost would almost certainly be higher in the full mandate policies since only those using the services would be likely to enroll in these plans.
Would this adversely affect many patients or few patients? Is the primary impact more likely to be limited to the provider groups due to decreased volume? Would decreased volume lead to higher unit costs by those same providers? Would the elimination of mandates spawn new policies from some of the more specialized insurers (a talking duck comes to mind)?
As with all questions relating to health care, these are difficult to answer. The free market has historically responded to these needs. Critical illness policies, which have been available for years, were introduced before such coverage was popular in the mainstream, and continue to be purchased by those who believe them to be of benefit.
It has been established that fewer small employers believe they can afford to provide health insurance benefits for their employees each year. The latest reports indicate that something in the range of 60% to 62% of small employers now provide access to health insurance benefits.
Would mandate-light health insurance be better than nothing? Would mandate-light be better than a single payer system operated by a government agency or quasi-public entity? Would mandate-light actually be a step toward relying upon insurance for what it was originally intended…catastrophic unforeseeable health care needs?
We have come to expect fully prepaid health care with but small office visit co-pays, at best. Our “entitlement mentality” has caught up with us and we’re all guilty of permitting that to occur. It has also caught up with our employers and with our country. We are only a few years away from the day when health care costs will consume 20% of our gross domestic product.
We need candid, honest debate and we need it now. That will be difficult in the highly charged environment of today, but it is essential. Can we indeed find our way “back to the future” or are we destined to repeat the failures of so many of our world neighbors?
Mandates have the effect of adding to the overall cost of health care. In some cases this happens because such services were not covered earlier or only partially covered. Mandates can and do make access to such care easier without significant personal cost. Health care costs drive health insurance costs, not the other way around as much of our media would have us believe. Mandates increase our health care costs. And that adds to our crisis in health care.
Mandates viewed individually appear to be good things. The following list shows those that are required in Wisconsin (Fact Sheet on Mandated Benefits in Health Insurance Policies, Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, PI-019 [R 01/2007]):
Optometric Service Access, Chiropractic Service Access,
Nurse Practitioner Access, Dental Service Access,
Adopted Child Coverage, Handicapped Child Coverage,
Home Health Care Access, Skilled Nursing Care,
Kidney Disease Coverage, Mammography Examinations,
Newborn Infant Coverage, Grandchild Coverage,
Diabetes Equipment & Supplies, Genetic Testing Restrictions,
HIV Treatment Drug Access Lead Screening (for children under 6),
TMJ Disorders, Breast Reconstruction,
Child Immunizations, Certain Clinical Cancer Trial Costs,
Maternity Coverage (if provided for any insured, it must be available to all),
Nervous and Mental Disorders, Alcoholism, and other Drug Abuse,
Hospital/Ambulatory Surgery Charges & Anesthetics for Certain Dental Care
(Self-funded [ERISA] plans by a city, village, county, or school district plans may be included in these regulations.)
Reviewing these individual mandates, we begin to get a better idea of how they might increase costs. Chiropractic-type services, for example, were covered originally only if delivered by a medical doctor. If we wanted to see a chiropractor, we did and we paid for it from our pockets. Chiropractors lobbied to gain the right to engage in the delivery of these services through health insurance policies and ultimately won that right. Unit costs were reduced somewhat with the new competition, but increased access to these services, coupled with advertising by the newly approved providers, likely more than offset whatever unit cost savings resulted.
The federal law that enabled health maintenance organizations also added the requirements for some of the now-mandated items in the interests of promoting preventative care (such as vision examinations). Labor-management bargaining contributed to the addition of benefits over the years and that led to certain of the mandates. Insurers were complicit since they added more such benefits in the attempt to differentiate themselves. Health care provider-to-consumer advertising also had a significant impact on health care mandates and increased costs.
Some states have begun to permit health policies referred to as “mandate-light” policies to be sold within their borders. These policies contain fewer mandates, or completely eliminate mandates, thus reducing the cost of those policies, and thereby making health insurance more affordable. The total cost for mandates in Wisconsin is estimated at from 20% of premiums to as much as 32% of premiums.
A valid question is: Should Wisconsin permit mandate-light policies to be sold? If that answer is yes, then the question becomes, which mandates should be excluded? The job of deciding which are in and which are out would be difficult. [Almost as difficult as a government run program deciding what to cover and what not to cover.] Self-insured plans in the private sector could provide some benchmarks for what is provided to employees by a majority of the self insured companies.
If mandate-light plans were permitted, would insurers still be willing and able to offer full mandate policies? Would they be able to price those to anticipate the increased costs of claims being spread across a smaller segment of society [adverse selection]? Would the state promulgate new laws requiring both types of policies? If both types were required, the premium cost would almost certainly be higher in the full mandate policies since only those using the services would be likely to enroll in these plans.
Would this adversely affect many patients or few patients? Is the primary impact more likely to be limited to the provider groups due to decreased volume? Would decreased volume lead to higher unit costs by those same providers? Would the elimination of mandates spawn new policies from some of the more specialized insurers (a talking duck comes to mind)?
As with all questions relating to health care, these are difficult to answer. The free market has historically responded to these needs. Critical illness policies, which have been available for years, were introduced before such coverage was popular in the mainstream, and continue to be purchased by those who believe them to be of benefit.
It has been established that fewer small employers believe they can afford to provide health insurance benefits for their employees each year. The latest reports indicate that something in the range of 60% to 62% of small employers now provide access to health insurance benefits.
Would mandate-light health insurance be better than nothing? Would mandate-light be better than a single payer system operated by a government agency or quasi-public entity? Would mandate-light actually be a step toward relying upon insurance for what it was originally intended…catastrophic unforeseeable health care needs?
We have come to expect fully prepaid health care with but small office visit co-pays, at best. Our “entitlement mentality” has caught up with us and we’re all guilty of permitting that to occur. It has also caught up with our employers and with our country. We are only a few years away from the day when health care costs will consume 20% of our gross domestic product.
We need candid, honest debate and we need it now. That will be difficult in the highly charged environment of today, but it is essential. Can we indeed find our way “back to the future” or are we destined to repeat the failures of so many of our world neighbors?
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