Tag Archives: Medicaid

Interesting Links

Hits & Misses – 2008/12/19

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Grassley Goes After Nonprofits. “The legislation would require nonprofit hospitals to spend a minimum amount on free care for the poor…and set curbs on executive compensation and conflicts of interest….”

Whose Life Is It Anyway? “Some companies are tying payments to medical test results. This year, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is offering $200 insurance rebates to its own employees who can maintain ‘healthy levels’ of blood pressure, cholesterol and other risk factors – or show they’re making an effort to improve them.”

Walk-in Clinics Expand Access. For once, a Commonwealth Fund study we like.

Cost Shifting from Medicare, Medicaid Dwarfs Cost Shifting from the Uninsured. “Underpayment by Medicare and Medicaid costs private insurers $89 billion a year, raising the cost of coverage for a family of four by $1,788.” Hat tip to Greg Scandlen.

Interesting Links

Hits & Misses – 2008/12/18

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Why the Mount Sinai ER is called the "knife and gun club." "Each shooting victim costs up to $12,000 to care for, and the patients rarely have health insurance or qualify for Medicaid."

What you don't know can hurt you. "Among 90 FDA-approved drugs between 1998 and 2000, there were 909 clinical trials: of these 394 were published in peer-reviewed medical journals and 515 were unpublished."

Pedestrians killed by vehicles – Manhattan is the worst borough. "Men and women who will never see 64 again were four times as likely as everyone else to be killed this way. Those who were 75 years old and up had a death rate more than five times that of their younger neighbors."

Listening to music may have had evolutionary survival value. It can aid cognitive recovery, promote the functioning of blood vessels, help treat depression and enhance athletic endurance.

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CPab8U5zTU

Heal Better, Feel Better – With Music

Health Insurance

Which Is Worse: Being Uninsured or Being Enrolled in Medicaid?

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This is Greg Scandlen, writing at the State Policy Network blog site here:

MedicaidThis author reviewed all of the 139 studies that comprised [Institute of Medicine's] analysis and found that only seven of them adjusted for income, but 44 identified the results of Medicaid enrollees separately from the uninsured and 26 compared the uninsured only to people with private insurance, omitting the role of Medicaid and Medicare. In 31 of the 44 studies that separated out the Medicaid experience, people on Medicaid did worse than the uninsured on a range of health treatments and outcomes. In a few cases, the uninsured and Medicaid patients both did better than the privately insured, such as mortality in the hospital.

Health Alerts

Memories

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At the National Journal Health Blog, Marilyn Serafini asked, "How much does health reform really cost, what elements are worth it, and what are the best and worst options for paying for it?" She invites bloggers to compare the current situation with the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. [link] Here is part of my response:

Here are five lessons from the Medicare and Medicaid experience:

  1. The cost of Medicare and Medicaid was way beyond what anyone predicted. The reason: failure to realize that when any good or service becomes free, people will consume more of it.
  2. Once started, these programs are extremely hard to curtail. If we ended Medicare today – collecting no more taxes and allowing no more accrual of benefits – we would still owe $33 trillion in benefits already earned! (Results of new NCPA study.)
  3. Looking indefinitely into the future, the Trustees have calculated there is an unfunded liability (promises made over and above expected premiums and dedicated taxes) of $85 trillion – almost six times the size of the entire economy.
  4. According to Amy Finkelstein, although Medicare was financially important to the elderly, it created no discernable health benefits in terms of reduced mortality. [link]
  5. Despite no measurable health benefits, the explosion of spending on these two programs forced up prices for everyone else. In fact, HHS' own internal estimates suggest that every $1 of additional spending buys 57¢ of higher prices.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MWN_duZfIs

"Memories Are Made of This"

Medicaid

Medicaid Payment: Low and Slow

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Newly signed Medicaid patients may have a tough time finding a doctor. Only about half of all physicians will accept new Medicaid enrollees, far less than the number of doctors taking on new Medicare patients or the privately insured. The reason? Medicaid reimbursement rates are low and the payment is slow. A study [gated but with abstract] in Health Affairs finds that the average Medicaid pay cycle ranges from a low of 37 days in Kansas to a high of 115 days in Pennsylvania.

Medicare

Primary Care All Night Long

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Another benefit of out-of-pocket medical care:

"In the city that never sleeps, we don't either," read ads plastered on the outer walls….The clinic promises more personalized, attentive late-night care than understaffed hospitals, and the continuity of primary-care physicians rather than a rotating cast of residents….

Uninsured people pay a $125 fee for the first visit and $65 for subsequent visits, with discounts available depending on income….

The clinic takes private health insurance and Medicare for the elderly, but not Medicaid for the poor.

Full story here.

Interesting Links

Hits & Misses – 2008/12/01

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Race Matters. Not surprising. But this is the first study [gated, but with abstract] I have seen that treats Medicaid enrollment as equivalent to being uninsured.

Geography Matters More. "While race matters….where you live can matter even more. Furthermore, there are some regions where African Americans receive equal or better care than whites." [link]

Insurance for Mainly Healthy People Is Cheap. According to an eHealth Insurance report, the average monthly premium was $130 per month for individual policies and $366 for families. Hat tip to Grace-Marie Turner.

Tobacco Deal, Ten Years On. Very funny video reenactment of how the deal was struck. [link]

Health Alerts

Daschle

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With Tom Daschle slated to become the next HHS Secretary, there has been a mad rush to get a copy of his book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, which apparently no one had previously read. Since booksellers can't possibly meet the demand, here is my brief attempt to satisfy your curiosity.

The main ideas: Medicaid expansion, Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) for everyone who wants to enroll, Medicare for the nonelderly as a FEHBP option, a play-or-pay mandate for individuals, income-based, refundable tax credit subsidies (both at work and away from work), a play-or-pay mandate for employers, electronic medical records, a national health board ("to establish a single standard of care for  every other provider and payer"…covering every disease from cancer to diabetes  and even depression), preventive care, dental health, mental health, long-term care, home care, community health centers and combating obesity. Continue reading Daschle →