Tag: "Health Care Access"

Hits and Misses

electronic-medical-recordCall your doctor: CMS says telehealth services should cover annual wellness visits, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

A remote control for your birth control.

A simple blood test for Alzheimer’s.

Weight loss: The best medicine for osteoarthritis.

And you thought you were a hoarder: CDC finds smallpox vials from 1950s in FDA storage room.

Poop in a pill: Fecal transplant drug nearing Phase 3 clinical trials.

A problem that self-identifies: Microwave oven that counts calories as it nukes.

Jul 10, 2014 | 14 comments | by

4 to 7 Million Will Be Fined under ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate

From the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation:

CBO and JCT estimate that 23 million uninsured people in 2016 will qualify for one or more of those exemptions. Of the remaining 7 million uninsured people, CBO and JCT estimate that some will be granted exemptions from the penalty because of hardship or for other reasons.

All told, CBO and JCT estimate that about 4 million people will pay a penalty because they are uninsured in 2016 (a figure that includes uninsured dependents who have the penalty paid on their behalf). An estimated $4 billion will be collected from those who are uninsured in 2016, and, on average, an estimated $5 billion will be collected per year over the 2017–2024 period.

(CBO, Payments of Penalties for Being Uninsured Under the Affordable Care Act: 2014 Update)

Jun 06, 2014 | 14 comments | by

Hits and Misses

Scale with tape measure bowThe post-2008 recession is associated with increasing obesity in rich nations.

The actual waiting time for an appointment at Phoenix VA hospital was 115 days – 91 days longer than falsely reported.

Samsung’s new watch has medical sensors that scan below the skin and read data deep inside veins.

Stanford University doctors are using iPhones to photograph the inside of the eye.

Federal grants to states for health care increased 34 percent, 2008-2014. Grants for everything else dropped.

No kidding! States that accepted ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion face unanticipated health expenses.

May 29, 2014 | 14 comments | by

Colorado Patients Win the “Right to Try” New Medicines Before the FDA Approves Them

Earlier this month, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper signed the nation’s first “right to try” law. The law allows a patient suffering from a disease, for which no medicine has been approved by the FDA, to try an experimental new medicine before the FDA approves it. The law allows, but does not force, drug-makers to provide their experimental drugs to patients. Other states, such as Louisiana and Missouri, are set to follow.

These patients are in dire straits. They suffer from diseases for which there is no other cure, and have short life expectancies. Most of us cannot imagine being in their position: They are willing to take far greater risks than most would accept, in their search for a cure.

Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has an exemption for “compassionate use”, that exemption requires jumping through too many bureaucratic hoops to be useful. So, scholars at the Goldwater Institute developed the idea of state “right to try” laws that would enable residents to use experimental new drugs without FDA approval.

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May 29, 2014 | 11 comments | by

Is ObamaCare Junk Insurance, Especially For Low-Income Americans?

Many of ObamaCare’s advocates believe that the proportion of a household’s income spent on health care is an appropriate measure of how effective health insurance is at doing its job. If a household spends ten percent or more of income on health care, it is said to be “underinsured” by the Commonwealth Fund or the Kaiser Family Foundation. Five percent is the cut-off for low-income households.

According to that standard, ObamaCare fails miserably at insuring low-income households:

In Washington, one in four individuals in households earning less than 250% of the poverty level signed up for a bronze plan with a deductible of $5,000-$6,350 per person and $10,000-$12,700 per family. Even after premiums, these households could face medical costs ranging from 17% to 40% of income before ObamaCare’s non-preventative-care benefits kick in.

Beyond the premium subsidies that the law provides, households earning up to 250% of the poverty level qualify for cost-sharing assistance. It can greatly reduce the deductible that must be exhausted before benefits kick in and, after that, the co-payments required for medical services and prescription drugs. But those cost-sharing subsidies are available only for those who buy silver-level coverage…

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Source:Investor’s Business Daily.

May 29, 2014 | 12 comments | by

Hits and Misses

Surgeon Operating on a PatientVA hospital administrators close operating rooms at 3 p.m.

ObamaCare causes hospitals to cut back on charity care.

Reference pricing for elective surgeries saved one large public employer $5.5 million in two years.

77 percent of doctors sanctioned by New York State Department of Health continue to practice.

Hospitals are lobbying to obliterate Medicare oversight that has recovered $8 billion in improper payments.

May 28, 2014 | 11 comments | by

Canadian Health Care’s War on Women: Waiting for Treatment Increases Female Deaths

UntitledCanada’s growing wait times for health care may have contributed to the deaths of 44,273 Canadian women between 1993 and 2009…The estimated 44,273 deaths between 1993 and 2009 represent 2.5 percent of all female deaths in Canada during that 16-year period, or 1.2 percent of Canada’s total mortality (male and female).

More specifically, during that same 16-year period, for every one-week increase in the post-referral wait time for medically necessary elective procedures, three female Canadians died (per 100,000 women).

No significant relationship between wait times and male mortality rates was found.

Source: Fraser Institute.

May 28, 2014 | 22 comments | by

VA Secret Waiting Time Cover-Up is Snowballing

people-in-waiting-roomThe number of VA facilities under investigation after complaints about falsified records and treatment delays has more than doubled in recent days, the Office of Inspector General at the Veterans Affairs Department said late Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for the IG’s office said 26 facilities were being investigated nationwide. Acting Inspector General Richard Griffin told a Senate committee last week that at least 10 new allegations about manipulated waiting times and other problems had surfaced since reports of problems at the Phoenix VA hospital came to light last month.

(AP via Christian Science Monitor)

May 27, 2014 | 18 comments | by

Hits and Misses

wine-glassA mouthwash you can swallow: Red wine fights cavities!

Social traits of thrift, docility and nonviolence have been bred within agrarian societies.

Most emergency room “frequent fliers” have a substance abuse addiction.

Alcohol triggers junk food cravings.

New pill designed to treat symptoms of hunger (I thought that was called celery).

Two large meals (breakfast and lunch) are better than 6 small ones with same calories for controlling weight and blood sugar in diabetics.

May 22, 2014 | 12 comments | by

Were 43% of Exchange Enrollees Insured in 2013?

health-insuranceAs predicted, people apparently are dropping pre-existing coverage to enroll in the exchanges. Express Scripts reports that 43 percent of the enrollees in the exchange plans that it contracts with were previously enrolled in a 2013 plan that also used Express Scripts. This means that at least 43 percent of exchange enrollees had previous coverage. The actual fraction of those with previous coverage may well be higher given that a one 2013 estimate concluded that Express Scripts controlled about 40 percent of the U.S. pharmacy benefit management market.

As this blog previously reported, Express Scripts also reported that exchange enrollees used 47 percent more specialty medications, drugs that account for more than a quarter of the nation’s spending on prescription drugs. The increased medication use is not surprising given that many states moved the people in their high risk pools into the exchanges.

The Express Scripts analysis was based on a national sample of more than 650,000 pharmacy claims from approximately 423,000 people enrolled in a public health insurance exchange from January 1, 2014 to February 24, 2014.

May 20, 2014 | 30 comments | by
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