Kaiser is the Future of Health Care?

Interesting article on Kaiser's efforts to control the costs of health care. It has spent $30B the past 10 yrs. on its electronic medical records capability. It employs all of its doctors and tracks each one for employing best treatment practices. Yet even in places such as California where it controls all forms of delivery its cost savings is only 10%.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/business/kaiser-permanente-is-seen-as-face-of-future-health-care.html?ref=business

Not For Profits Best For Profit Health Plans in Customer Satisfaction

No particularly reason given for not for profits doing better here. Overall though health plans have very low customer satisfaction scores.

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/print/HEP-290331/Nonprofit-Health-Plans-Edge-ForProfits-in-Customer-Satisfaction

Great Results When Hospitals Share Best Practices

Former CMS head Donald Berwick has good news to report on a national initiative to improve hospital performance. Most eye popping number--over 92,000 lives saved as a result of reduced infections and better care. Amazing.  Plus these hospitals provided this better care at lower costs.


http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/print/QUA-290313/Berwick-Quest-Program-Results-A-Breakthrough

Best Analysis of the two Medicare Proposals by Far

This article by Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic easily does the best job I have seen of comparing the two Medicare reform  initiatives of the two presidential candidates:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/106298/guide-to-medicare-debate-romney-ryan-obama-voucher-premium-support#comment-377242

Supplemental Policies Sales Increase

With high deductible coverage becoing increasing popular due to its lower costs for employees, it appears that employees are buying supplemental policies to fill in the gap:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/02/us-insurance-supplementary-gaps-idUSBRE87111K20120802t

Maasachusetts Legislature Passes Bill to Rein in Health Care Costs

The Legislature in MA yesterday passed a bill that limits the cost of health care to the rate of economic growth in the state. This will be a challenge for providers and insurers as medical costs increased 6-7% in 2010 while the state economy grew by only 3.6%. More details in this Boston Globe article:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2012/07/30/legislative-leaders-reach-compromise-plan-control-health-care-spending/nVM0gPAYznIo4Vc9YYlgyH/story.html?

Will this work? Hard to say but MA s the first state in the country to set such a target. More details to follow.

HCCI Report: Rising HC Costs Due to Children

According to a report from the Health Care Cost Institute, a Washington, DC-based research group, spending on healthcare costs for commercially insured children under age 18 grew faster than spending for adults from 2007 to 2010. HCCI had access to three billion health insurance claims from Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare.

Insurers and consumers spent nearly $88 billion on healthcare for children in 2010, up by 12% percent from 2007, according to the HCCI. Spending increased even though the number of children covered by employer-sponsored insurance dropped from 44 million in 2007 to 41.4 million in 2010.

By comparison, healthcare costs for adults increased by 8%. For  the full report please clink on the link below.
http://www.healthcostinstitute.org/childrensreport