Health Wonk Review – Health Reform Edition

Recent articles

• Medicare Trustees Report: We’re Fucked

  May 21, 2012 in Uncategorized

  Despite lower costs than previously projected, the Medicare Trust Fund is still in bad shape. he estimated exhaustion date for Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, “…remains at 2024,the same year shown in last year’s report. As in past years…the fund is not adequately financed over the next 10 years. HI expenditures in 2011 were [...]

• Measuring Hospital Efficiency

  May 20, 2012 in Hospitals, Medicare, P4P, Quality

  Medicare recently released the Medicare Spending per Beneficiary (MSPB) measure on Hospital Compare. This measure includes all payments to doctors, hospitals or other facilities for services provided to a patient during the three days before the hospital stay, during the stay, and during the 30 days after discharge from the hospital. Kaiser Health news provides [...]

• Thoughts about Sebelius address Georgetown graduates

  May 18, 2012 in Uncategorized

  In a few hours, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will address a keynote speech to graduates at Georgetown University.  This is a controversial appearance.  One provision of the health of the Health Reform (i.e., the ACA) mandates that employer cover contraception coverage.  Although Georgetown University has agreed to provide these benefits, other [...]

• Is the government texting your baby?

  May 17, 2012 in Public Health

  In honor of National Women’s Health Week, U.S. Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) hosted a briefing on the text4baby program today. What is Text4Baby? Text4Baby is a free national health texting service that promote senrollment in both Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and provide pregnant [...]

• What is the effect of physical examination requirements on mortality rates?

  May 16, 2012 in Regulation

  Is tele-medicine/internet-medicine the wave of the future?  Or do these alternative treatment methods just make it easier for patients and providers to engage in fraudulent and/or unsafe behaviors? In response to concerns about tele-medicine’s effect on patient safety, many states have begun prohibiting physicians from prescribing drugs without conducting a prior physical examination. In fact, [...]