Dr. Don Berwick’s 5 principles for change
E-mail| Print | Comments ()12/08/2011 10:12 AM
Dr. Don Berwick often speaks of the Affordable Care Act as a “majestic” law. Yesterday afternoon the former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator spoke during the annual conference of the Cambridge-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement, which he led for nearly 20 years, about experiencing majesty.
Berwick told a story about the steady pace of progress, about visiting the Lincoln Memorial as a 12-year-old and again last week, on his last night in Washington. He noted the addition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s name to the monument and the date he delivered his famous speech there.
“When I first stood at that spot, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was only three years in the past, and Dr. King’s speech lay five years in the future,” he said. “I thought, standing there, of something I once heard Dr. Joseph Juran say: ‘The pace of change is majestic.’ And I mused about that majesty, and its nature.”
Berwick outlined five principles to guide change in health care:
1. Put the patient first.
2. Among those, put the poor and disadvantaged first, “those in the beginning, the end, and the shadows of life. Let us meet the moral test.”
3. Start at scale. “There is no more time left for timidity. Pilots will not suffice.”
4. Return the money. “It is crucial that the employers and wage-earners and unions and states and taxpayers – those who actually pay the health care bill – see that bill fall.”
5. Act locally. Every community must mobilize, he said.
http://www.boston.com/Boston/whitecoatnotes/2011/12/don-berwick-five-principles-for-change/qWyl3sMa8yXCFd97qKLF0H/index.html?s_campaign=8315
Health Care Law Will Let States Tailor Benefits
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said Friday that it would not define a single uniform set of “essential health benefits” that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories.
The move would allow significant variations in benefits from state to state, much like the current differences in state Medicaid programs and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Meet the new 1%: healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America's best paid
Created Thursday, December 15, 2011
No bankers in top 10 of America's best-paid executives, but those in charge of healthcare and drugs firms are in the money
By Dominic RusheThe Guardian, 14 December 2011
Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay.
There are no bankers in the top 10 of this year's GMI survey of CEO pay. In fact, they have been out since 2007, when Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein competed for the top slot with Richard Fuld, boss of soon-to-be-bust Lehman Brothers, and Angelo Morzillo, head of Countrywide, once the largest sub-prime home loan firm.
With the bankers still recovering from their tussle with hubris, old age and infirmity were 2010's boom businesses – at least in terms of pay. Leading the pack was John Hammergren, chief executive of McKesson Corporation. The firm's 52-year-old chairman, chief executive and president took home $145,266,971 in 2010.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2011/december/meet-the-new-1-healthcare-ceos-replace-bankers-as-americas-best-paid
Working With Medicare
There are many ways to rein in Medicare spending without scrapping the system and starting over.
Republicans are arguing that helping older and disabled Americans buy private insurance would be cheaper for the federal government and better for beneficiaries. Last week, a Democratic senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, joined Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the Budget Committee, in proposing the latest version of “premium support.” Their ideas deserve careful scrutiny, but we are skeptical that any of the proposals for premium support that have been floated by Republicans can rein in Medicare spending without harming beneficiaries, financially or medically.
Traditional Medicare has improved the health and financial security for countless older Americans over the past four decades, and it has done better at slowing cost increases than has private insurance. Before heading off in a new and risky direction, policy makers should carefully consider a host of ideas that could shave hundreds of billions of dollars from projected Medicare spending over the next decade without shifting huge burdens onto beneficiaries.
Doctor moves from humor to activism
The Associated Press
AUBURN — A family doctor who targeted physicians' funny bone with a humor magazine for doctors has ceased publication after a 10-year run, freeing him up to sharpen his focus on attacking changes in the health industry that he says come between doctors and their patients.
Bill Nemitz: Vigil keeps morality of MaineCare cuts in mind
To the best anyone could recall, it was a first for the Maine Council of Churches: Throughout last week's three-day public hearing on Gov. Paul LePage's proposed cuts toMaineCare, dozens of people took a few minutes -- or a few hours -- to sit down in a corner of the State House and pray.
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