Health Business Blog

Welcome to the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review at the Health Business Blog.

Bitter pills

• Pyrrhic victory. Expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act has coincided with a decline in employment levels among the disabled. Workers Comp Insider.
• No way. Thanks to lobbyists, health care reform has no chance in Congress. Oh, and by the way there’s also no hope of tackling any of the other crises facing the US, including obesity, energy, education, the environment, poverty, and infrastructure replacement. The Health Care Blog.
• Down with the ANA. The American Nurses Association is a big-time loser. All talk and nothing to show for it. Home of the Brave.
• Managed care to the electric chair? The health insurance industry association should change its name to America’s Risk Selection Companies and drop the pretense that its members actually manage care. Managed Care Matters.
• RUC off! How come the proceduralist-dominated RBRVS Update Committee (RUC) is allowed to dictate Medicare reimbursement and why do private insurers slavishly follow CMS’s lead? Health Care Renewal.
• The Medicare monster. If things keep going the way they are right now, Medicare is going to gobble us up. Health Business Blog.

Capitalist contentment and conceit

• Keeping the faith. Some nursing homes maximize profits by keeping nursing staff levels low and treating sanctions for fraud and poor quality as a cost of doing business. That doesn’t mean we need minimum nurse staffing ratios, though. Take that, ANA! Healthcare Economist.
• Ode to high prices. Sure drugs are expensive. But don’t forget all the wonderful innovations the drug companies bring and how terrible the VA is. Healthcare Manumission.
• No right to health care. Everyone has access to medical care in the US. And who says health care is a right anyway? Amateur Economists.
• No right to police protection either. Who needs cops when we have the Second Amendment? And who needs government-sponsored health care instead of good old fashioned self-reliance? Patient Power.
• Take that you bleeding heart, poutine-eating, multi-cultural, igloo-dwelling, took-wearing beer swillers! Why would anyone want to languish on the waiting list in Canada dying of a brain tumor when they could simply get on the plane to Arizona and be cured? InsureBlog.

Sunny side up

• Make mine Medicare. Medicare reform is possible and can lead to reform of the whole system. HealthBeatBlog.
• The bus pass cure. How a $23 bus pass can save almost $1400 –and other tales of IHI-induced bliss. The New Health Dialogue Blog.
• There’s no management like disease management. Sky-high ROI from disease management? Seven reasons why it’s possible. Disease Management Care Blog.
• Brain food. There’s hope for us yet as computerized cognitive assessments catch on. SharpBrains.

Plain old policy

• Killing me softly. Why is Parliament discussing physician-assisted suicide again? Canadian Medicine.
• Introducing the transhuman. Luckily he’s not on the scene yet. (See trend #7). Sentinel Effect.
• So funny I forgot to laugh. When the details of plan benefit design become fodder for stand-up comics, it’s time for a change. Health Access Weblog.
• When ONCHIT’s speak, people listen. Robert Kolodner speaks about health IT, but will he forgive the Manumussionaries? Neil Versel’s Healthcare IT Blog.
• Pragmatism and principle. Birth control pills are cheap enough that we shouldn’t force insurers to provide coverage. Colorado Health Insurance Insider.
• A better way to control imaging costs. EHR + EBM + CPOE, obviously. HealthBlawg
• 1.25 cheers for doctor unions. Anyone ready for collective bargaining by physicians? Probably not. Brain Blogger.
• To plan or not to plan? Should the health care workforce rely on market-based solutions or is government intervention the way to go? Health Affairs Blog.

Thanks for reading. Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review hosts the next edition.

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