Obama and Corporate America
President Obama is smart to extend an olive branch to American businesses. Our economic success depends on businesses investing, growing and creating new jobs. From expanding exports to improving infrastructure, government and businesses share important goals.
From a purely pragmatic political standpoint, reaching an entente with corporate leaders will make it easer to defuse the hostility he has faced. Some of it has been purely partisan and ideological, from groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce, which deployed millions to unseat Democrats in the Congressional elections last year.
Merger Of Two Big Health Plans Could Help Control Rising Costs
WITH THE state demanding that insurers drive down health costs by negotiating better deals with hospitals, both sides are fattening up for battle. That is one reason behind the continuing expansion of the old Caritas system of Catholic hospitals and the merger that Tufts and Harvard Pilgrim health plans are mulling over. Bigger is better, both in achieving economies of scale in administration and in boosting market power.
Merger Plan To Test Tufts CEO’s Diplomatic Skills
When President Obama blasted health insurers to rally support for a health care overhaul last year, it fell to James Roosevelt Jr. to defend his industry and chide the nation’s commander in chief, in a White House room named after Roosevelt’s grandfather.
Insurers are “a positive force for both quality and [reducing] cost,’’ Roosevelt said afterward. “So to be the designated villain was an uncomfortable place to be. Now politically, I understand why that happened. But that doesn’t help your emotional reaction.’’
Obama's Healthcare Defense: Obama Offers Strong Defense Of Healthcare Law
Reporting from Washington —
Speaking to a conference of consumer advocates in Washington,
President Obama on Friday delivered a spirited defense of the healthcare law he signed last year and urged supporters of the landmark legislation to continue working to implement it.
"This is making a real difference to families across this country as we speak," Obama told a gathering of Families USA, a leading national consumer group that was critical in passing the law.
3 health insurers agree to 60-day delay on rate hikes
Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross and PacifiCare agree to put off premium increases for people with individual policies while they are reviewed by the California insurance commissioner.
By Stephen Ceasar and Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times
4:37 PM PST, January 27, 2011
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Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross and PacifiCare agreed to delay the increases for people with individual policies. Unaffected are workers insured through their employers. None of the three insurers had any immediate comment.
The announcement Thursday was in contrast to a decision Jan. 15 by Blue Shield of California to defy the commissioner and go ahead with increases that could total up to 59%.
As for Blue Shield, the San Francisco-based nonprofit, Jones said its policyholders "will not have the benefit of this additional review period to ensure compliance with the law, but I will do what is within my power to determine whether Blue Shield's proposed rates are in compliance with the law and to enforce that law."
The company is moving ahead with rate increases for the third time since October. Some of its 194,000 individual policyholders were notified recently that they would receive all three at once.
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-fi-insure-rates-20110128,0,7648271,print.story
Why Don't Americans Live Longer?
The National Academy of Sciences has just released a fascinating report on life expectancy in rich countries around the world. The researchers who wrote the report — public-health experts, demographers, economists and others, from around the world — have tried to figure out why Americans don’t live as long as people in many other countries.
The Missing Ingredient in Accountable Care
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
This past week while spending time with nonmedical friends, I found myself referring to what health care experts have been touting as the system’s best hope for the future. My friends, eager to learn more and always game for any clarification of the health care system, leaned in to hear me expound on accountable care organizations, or A.C.O.’s.
Not just another pilot project or policy pipe dream, A.C.O.’s will be legal partnerships between clinicians andhospitals that will be part of Medicare by 2012. As a partnership, these providers will be responsible for all the health care needs of a specific population of patients who are assigned, but are not necessarily restricted, to them. Unlike fee-for-service, payers will give A.C.O.’s a lump sum to cover all care, but the A.C.O.’s will beable to keep any savings that result from more efficient and better care.
Assessing an ACO Prototype — Medicare's Physician Group Practice Demonstration
N Engl J Med 2011; 364:198-200January 20, 2011
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