Smorgasbord Anyone?
The recently passed “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” a/k/a “health care reform” is a monumental piece of legislation, both literally and figuratively. Despite its supposed intent to “reform” the health care system, however, it is quite tepid on reform and very aggressive on enhancing coverage. The legislation contains a virtual smorgasbord of programs, directives, initiatives, instructions, orders, regulations, requirements, …
Read more >What I wish she had said… The challenge of really communicating about health care reform
The Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce held its annual policy conference on Mackinac Island this past week. Health care reform was a topic of great interest to many of the attendees. In general, this group of 1,100 or so business leaders was either agnostic about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or negative on it. Few had much knowledge …
Read more >Creating Focus and Building on the Opportunity of Health Reform
As I’ve said in past posts, health care reform is much more about insurance reform of the health insurance system than it is about real and fundamental change to the health care delivery or public health systems (see “The Case of the Missing $115 Billion”). The bulk of the dollars included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) …
Read more >The Health Care Industry in Michigan: Staying on the Open Road
When I first came to Michigan from Indiana a year ago, I knew I was coming to a special state for health care. Impressively, hospitals across Michigan have topped the national charts for years when it comes to providing high-quality health care. And compared with most states, Michigan has a long history of innovative pharmaceutical and medical research, excellent private …
Read more >CHRT Policy Brief Demystifies National Health Care Act; Shows Choices, Opportunities at State, Local Levels
The Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation (CHRT) today released a national policy brief on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Act”) that summarizes state requirements, as well as opportunities at the state and local levels to shape health care delivery. “This Policy Brief is a tool to help policy-makers, providers of care, foundations, and individuals understand the scope …
Read more >The Case of the Missing $115 billion
The printed version of the final health reform Act (PL 111-148) comes in at 907 pages (yes, lots of white space and pretty small pages – and yes, including an detour into student loans – but still, a very big Act any way you look at it). Many have noted the sweeping nature of the Act and how it touches …
Read more >The Ann Arbor News: State backs Washtenaw County push for federally-qualified health center
CHRT director Marianne Udow-Phillips comments on news that Gov. Granholm supports an exception for Washtenaw County to allow public health clinics to apply for status as a federally-qualified health center, despite difficulties in arguing the area is “medically underserved.”
Read more >The Wrong Policy: Physicians, Medicare Payment, and What Congress Could Learn from Private Sector Experience
Bruce Vladeck has a terrific piece in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine describing the problems with how physician fees are currently adjusted under Medicare. The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, put in place in by Congress in 1997 – was designed to use physician fees as a tool to control health care spending. That is, total physician payments …
Read more >The Paradox of Accountable Care Organizations
In the run up to health care reform, there was considerable discussion and advocacy for the idea of encouraging the implementation of something called accountable care organization (ACOs). Count me as a hope-to-be proved-wrong skeptic of this idea. The definition of an ACO is somewhat vague. Essentially the idea is to have groups of providers (group practices, individual providers, hospitals) …
Read more >Crain's Detroit Business: PPO creation, Medicare payment changes altered local health care
CHRT director Marianne Udow-Phillips is quoted in an examination of the tremendous changes in Southeast Michigan’s health care industry since 1985.
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