Wal-Mart considers expanding healthcare services at its clinics
A confidential document says the retail giant is exploring ways to become a primary care service provider by partnering with outside healthcare companies to treat and manage a range of serious medical conditions at its 140 in-store clinics nationwide.
By Duke Helfand and Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles TimesOp-Ed
Will partisanship shape the healthcare ruling?
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of the individual mandate. But will the judges see the issue in terms of legal precedent or partisanship?
By Erwin ChemerinskyNovember 15, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chermerinsky-healthcare-20111115,0,3665371,print.story
Anthem Blue Cross sued over higher medical insurance deductibles
Consumer Watchdog says California's largest for-profit health insurance company used 'bait and switch' tactics to raise deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for some customers May 1.
By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles TimesNovember 15, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-anthem-lawsuit-20111115,0,3519616,print.story
Welcome to the revolution. Our elites have exposed their hand. They have nothing to offer. They can destroy but they cannot build. They can repress but they cannot lead. They can steal but they cannot share. They can talk but they cannot speak. They are as dead and useless to us as the water-soaked books, tents, sleeping bags, suitcases, food boxes and clothes that were tossed by sanitation workers Tuesday morning into garbage trucks in New York City. They have no ideas, no plans and no vision for the future.
Single-payer plan prompts docs to bargain with the state on reforms
Created Tuesday, November 15, 2011
By Alan Panebaker
VTDigger, November 14, 2011
In reaction to the Shumlin administration’s push for a single-payer style health care system, doctors have resuscitated a bargaining group that will represent the interests of physicians.
The Green Mountain Care board is developing plans for reforms that will likely have an impact on doctors’ earning power, and members of the Vermont Medical Society are worried about their future compensation and working conditions.
At the Society’s annual meeting last month, members voted to reconvene a bargaining group called the Physician Policy Council that was originally formed in the 1990s.
Unlike a union, where employees negotiate with their employer for fair wages and benefits, the council will bargain directly with the state as it creates a benefits package for all Vermonters and possibly implements a “single pipe” payment mechanism for health care providers as part of a reform effort that would set the stage for a universal health care system. Payment reform plans will likely result in a uniform pricing system for physician care.
VTDigger, November 14, 2011
In reaction to the Shumlin administration’s push for a single-payer style health care system, doctors have resuscitated a bargaining group that will represent the interests of physicians.
The Green Mountain Care board is developing plans for reforms that will likely have an impact on doctors’ earning power, and members of the Vermont Medical Society are worried about their future compensation and working conditions.
At the Society’s annual meeting last month, members voted to reconvene a bargaining group called the Physician Policy Council that was originally formed in the 1990s.
Unlike a union, where employees negotiate with their employer for fair wages and benefits, the council will bargain directly with the state as it creates a benefits package for all Vermonters and possibly implements a “single pipe” payment mechanism for health care providers as part of a reform effort that would set the stage for a universal health care system. Payment reform plans will likely result in a uniform pricing system for physician care.
Occupy Protesters Interrupt Chamber of Commerce Health Care Event
Created Tuesday, November 15, 2011
By Think Progress
Protesters disrupted a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event on health care today, interrupting speaker Scott Serota, the CEO of Blue Cross & Blue Shield. Chanting “we are the 99 percent,” the protesters stood at the luncheon event and used a “human microphone” technique to read a statement about how the “the one percent in the health care industry” is only interested in profit “at the expense of human suffering and preventable death.” The protesters decried the influence that the health insurance industry wielded in the debate over the Affordable Care Act, and called for “Medicare for all” or a “single payer health system.” Watch it:
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2011/november/occupy-protestors-interrupt-chamber-of-commerce-health-care-event
Protesters disrupted a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event on health care today, interrupting speaker Scott Serota, the CEO of Blue Cross & Blue Shield. Chanting “we are the 99 percent,” the protesters stood at the luncheon event and used a “human microphone” technique to read a statement about how the “the one percent in the health care industry” is only interested in profit “at the expense of human suffering and preventable death.” The protesters decried the influence that the health insurance industry wielded in the debate over the Affordable Care Act, and called for “Medicare for all” or a “single payer health system.” Watch it:
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2011/november/occupy-protestors-interrupt-chamber-of-commerce-health-care-event
A better health care system now within reach
Created Monday, November 14, 2011
By Nicholas H. Anton, M.D.
The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.), Nov. 12, 2011
Occupy Wall Street emerged as a grass-roots campaign against excessive corporate wealth and political power. Having been bailed out by the U.S. government, large banks are making record profits and paying huge bonuses while lobbying for less regulation of the activities largely responsible for our country's financial collapse.
Embedded in this corporate culture is the health care industry, composed of insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. Their lobbying efforts and extensive financial resources — spending $1.4 billion on the recent health care reform debate — resulted in a watered-down bill.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. It preserves the major contributor to high-cost health care — the private insurance industry — while leaving 23 million uninsured and failing to address the skyrocketing cost of the U.S. health care system.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2011/november/a-better-health-care-system-now-within-reach
If asked the question, "Who is the most popular Canadian who ever lived?" most Americans could be forgiven for answering "Wayne Gretzky". A logical enough answer in a nation where ice hockey is a virtual religion, but as my father’s old English teacher would diplomatically comment, "ingenious, but wrong".
In fact the man who was voted "the Greatest Canadian of All Time" in a nationally televised contest in 2004 was not a hockey player, but a politician widely recognized as the architect of Canada's current health care system--T.C. "Tommy" Douglas. (Wayne Gretzky, a.k.a. “The Great One,” came in 10th in the same contest!)
http://maineallcare.org/news/expert_opinion.html
The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.), Nov. 12, 2011
Occupy Wall Street emerged as a grass-roots campaign against excessive corporate wealth and political power. Having been bailed out by the U.S. government, large banks are making record profits and paying huge bonuses while lobbying for less regulation of the activities largely responsible for our country's financial collapse.
Embedded in this corporate culture is the health care industry, composed of insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. Their lobbying efforts and extensive financial resources — spending $1.4 billion on the recent health care reform debate — resulted in a watered-down bill.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. It preserves the major contributor to high-cost health care — the private insurance industry — while leaving 23 million uninsured and failing to address the skyrocketing cost of the U.S. health care system.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2011/november/a-better-health-care-system-now-within-reach
EXPERT OPINION
Tommy Douglas and Healthcare Reform
By James H. Maier, M.D.
If asked the question, "Who is the most popular Canadian who ever lived?" most Americans could be forgiven for answering "Wayne Gretzky". A logical enough answer in a nation where ice hockey is a virtual religion, but as my father’s old English teacher would diplomatically comment, "ingenious, but wrong".
In fact the man who was voted "the Greatest Canadian of All Time" in a nationally televised contest in 2004 was not a hockey player, but a politician widely recognized as the architect of Canada's current health care system--T.C. "Tommy" Douglas. (Wayne Gretzky, a.k.a. “The Great One,” came in 10th in the same contest!)
http://maineallcare.org/news/expert_opinion.html
The Smokers’ Surcharge
By REED ABELSON
More and more employers are demanding that workers who smoke, are overweight or have high cholesterol shoulder a greater share of their health care costs, a shift toward penalizing employees with unhealthy lifestyles rather than rewarding good habits.
Policies that impose financial penalties on employees have doubled in the last two years to 19 percent of 248 major American employers recently surveyed. Next year, Towers Watson, the benefits consultant that conducted the survey, said the practice — among employers with at least 1,000 workers — was expected to double again.
Saving by the Bundle
By EZEKIEL J. EMANUELEzekiel J. Emanuel on health policy and other topics.
Tags:
On a typical night in the emergency room, a patient shows up short of breath, suffering from emphysema or heart failure or maybe both, as well as diabetes and high blood pressure. Doctors and nurses administer inhalers to ease his breathing and diuretics to take off excess fluid, and admit him to the hospital. Over the next few days, interns and residents furiously adjust his medications and fix his diet. He is discharged with a stack of prescriptions. A week or two later, chances are good he’ll be right back in the emergency room.
A 2009 study in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that among Medicare patients, 20 percent were re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged. We call these chronically ill patients frequent fliers.
In 2012, both Obama and Romney would bear the burdens of health-care reform
If former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and President Obama face off in the 2012 presidential campaign, America will witness the singular spectacle of two candidates getting very little love — and plenty of hate — for the same signature achievement: reforming health care.
5 Myths About Health Care Around the World
By T.R. Reid
Sunday, August 23, 2009
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.
I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778_pf.html
By T.R. Reid
Sunday, August 23, 2009
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.
I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778_pf.html
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