Reform Rodeo

December 26, 2009 by Jordan Cohen · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Health Reform, Reform Rodeo, Uncategorized

Photo by David Monniaux

Getting Up to Speed: Kaiser Health News breaks down where reform currently stands now that the Senate has passed their version of the Bill.
Multimedia Perspective: A thorough and well-done interactive timeline of U.S. Health Care Reform helps to provide some much-needed context. Clicking on the event gives a synopsis as well as a link to an NEJM piece on the event from that era.
No Snow(e) in Sight: Sam Stein notes how Olympia Snowe–a Senator who not long ago garnered the attention of all health reform followers–rationalized her “Nay” by questioning the Bill’s constitutionality.
1. Speaking of the constitutionality of the Senate’s bill: As we have noted on this site earlier, questions of constitutionality pervade the dialogue. For those whose interest has been piqued, bloggers at the Volokh Conspiracy have penned a number of pieces on the issue, here, here, and here.
Senate Bill’s impact on health insurance companies: Bob Laszewski discusses the Bill’s impact on insurance company–channeling the skepticism of non-profit Harvard Pilgrim’s CEO Bruce Bullen.
Impending Car Crash?: Michael Goozner reiterates his view that the tax on “Cadillac” plans is the biggest issue facing health reform.
In case you missed it (an oldie but goodie): A Health Reform Watch article on the impact of lobbyists included in the Wikepedia entries for “Health Care Reform, United States” and “Health Insurance.” Which, now that a bill has passed in the Senate, begs the question: do you think those lobbyists might be in line for a bonus?

Tags: Health Care Reform, Health Reform, Lobby Expenditures, National Newspapers & Media, Private Insurance, Proposed Legislation

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- 100 Percent of Primary Care Doctors in Denmark Use Electronic Medical Records
  All primary care doctors in Denmark use electronic medical records and 98 percent have the ability to electronically manage patient care—including ordering prescriptions, drafting notes about patient visits, and sending appointment reminders. In addition, almost all medical communication between primary care doctors, specialists, and hospitals is electroni […]
- Widespread Adoption of Information Technology in Primary Care Physician Offices in Denmark: A Case Study
  Denmark is one of the world's leading countries in the use of health care technology. Virtually all Danish primary care physicians have electronic medical records with full clinical functionality.
- Measurement Framework: Evaluating Efficiency Across Patient-Focused Episodes of Care
  This consensus report lays the groundwork for a measurement framework that evaluates efficiency, and ultimately value, across patient-focused episodes of care. This framework will help key stakeholders move toward a high-performing healthcare system that is patient-centered, focused on quality, mindful of costs, and vigilant against waste.
- The Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project: Supporting Mental Health Treatment in Primary Care
  Massachusetts has successfully demonstrated the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project, a program that provides timely telephonic psychiatric and clinical guidance to primary care providers treating children with mental health problems. This study looks into the development and implementation of the project.
- Improving Asthma Outcomes in Minority Children: A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Parent Mentors
  This article looks an experimental program in Milwaukee that uses trained parent mentors to help other parents care for their young child's asthma.
RWJF Health Reform News
- Democrats Pare Differences Over Health Overhaul
  Top Democrats say they are resolving disputes over President Barack Obama's health overhaul plan, but they face decisions on subsidizing coverage and are still hunting votes to push the vast package through Congress.
- Democrats Move To Grouping Key Bills
  Democratic leaders said Thursday that they were increasingly inclined to release a final health-care bill that could accomplish two of President Obama's top domestic priorities: guaranteeing coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans and vastly expanding federal aid for college students.
- Democrats Struggle to Finish Health Bill
  House and Senate Democratic leaders struggled Thursday to stitch together pieces of a final health care bill as rank-and-file Democrats demanded more information about the contents of the bill and its cost.
- GOP Tactic in Ads: Scare Thy Rival
  With a final vote drawing near on President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, Republicans' latest strategy can be neatly summarized: try to scare the daylights out of House Democrats.
- More Health Costs Could Shift to Workers
  Most big employers plan to shift a larger share of health-care costs to their workers next year, according to a survey released Thursday.
NY Times Health Policy
- Dysport Takes On Botox With Aggressive Rebates
  Medicis has started a new marketing campaign that pits its wrinkle-smoother, Dysport, directly against Botox. It makes bioethicists squirm.
- Democrats Struggle to Finish Health Bill
  Rank-and-file House Democrats were frustrated, saying they had received few details about what would be in the legislation.
- Obama Gets Tough on Health Care Fraud
  The president said he would unleash auditors in a crackdown on Medicare and Medicaid waste and fraud, a move to please both liberals and conservatives.
- National Briefing | South: Virginia: Opting to Refuse Health Overhaul
  The state legislature approved a measure that bucks any effort by President Obama and Congress to carry out a national health care overhaul in individual states.
- Parliamentary Hurdle Could Thwart Latest Health Care Overhaul Strategy
  As Democrats considered potential maneuvers, business groups announced plans for a campaign to stop the legislation.
WaPo Health
- A few setbacks and changes in routine to lose 10 pounds
  Me Minus 10 got off to a rocky start two weeks ago: No sooner had I pledged to lose 10 pounds than I got, first, a GI-tract malady and then a wicked head cold (both now resolved). Neither helped me mentally or physically. Nor did learning, upon purchase of a new scale, that I have 12, not 10 poun...
- On health-care reform, Republicans target Democrats' division over reconciliation
  As Republicans work to prevent a health-care bill from reaching President Obama, they are scrambling to exploit divisions between Democrats in the House and the Senate.
- Book review: Susan Okie reviews "We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication," by Judith Warner
  Instead of an epidemic of over-treatment, Warner describes an epidemic of under-treatment of children with mental illness.
- A patient's death prompts a doctor to assess 'Do Not Resuscitate' orders
  The emergency department is always noisy, but sudden screams from a staffer still get attention. The triage nurse is yelling, "Not breathing, had vitals at triage and just croaked," as she runs toward us pushing a wheelchair. In it, a pale, thin man is slumped over and looking gray. I'm the atten...
- Despite what you may have heard, there's no boom in deafness
  When I was growing up, one of my mother's favorite admonitions -- along with "If you keep making that face, it's going to freeze that way" and "Don't sit too close to the television or you're going to need glasses" -- was the classic "Turn that music down, or you'll go deaf."
Boston Globe Health Blog
- Today's Globe
  President Obama?s demand to delete "special deals" in the health care package would eliminate $500 million in extra Medicaid cash for Massachusetts, but Bay State lawmakers say they are confident the state would recoup that and probably more once negotiations...
- State regulators to consider revamp of health insurance rule
  State regulators today said that they will likely overhaul the complex formula they use to determine how many Massachusetts residents face a tax penalty for not having health insurance because spiraling costs are making coverage unaffordable for too many people.The...
- Today's Globe
  In just two years, spending on MRIs, mammograms, and other imaging tests climbed by at least $214 million in Massachusetts, helping to fuel a dramatic rise in the cost of outpatient hospital care.A bill that would ban the sale of...
- Broad Institute director shares prestigious medicine prize
  By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff Eric S. Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is one of three winners of the Albany Medical Center Prize in Biomedical Research, a $500,000 prize awarded this year for...
- Today's Globe
  A group of Massachusetts mayors, fed up with what they say is legislative inaction on skyrocketing municipal health care costs, has launched a ballot initiative for 2012 aimed at giving cities and towns more flexibility in reducing expensive benefits for...
LA Times Health Blog
- More anthrax cases among heroin addicts in Scotland
  Have you been following the strange story of the heroin addicts in Scotland who have been contracting anthrax infections? Two more addicts are being treated, according to a report we picked up on Promed, a clearinghouse for infectious disease news....
- Autism vaccine ruling sparks a lot of comment
  Today's decision by a federal court that the preservative thimerosal does not cause autism has sparked a lot of comment in the autism community, most of it negative. Many saw it as a government conspiracy to protect the vaccine industry,...
- To sell stuff, companies want to read your brain -- but are they even close?
  I just finished reading an article recently published online in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience about "neuromarketing" -- the idea that brain scans might better reveal our propensity to buy something than do focus groups, surveys or pre-market tests. Maybe,...
Health Affairs Blog
- Rising Individual Market Premiums: Two Competing Narratives
  Anthem Blue Cross of California, the largest health insurance company in California, recently announced plans to increase insurance premiums by as much as 39 percent for people insured in their non-group health insurance plans. This dramatic and unprecedented premium increase has received substantial media attention as well as scrutiny and ire from policymak […]
- Gregg: Use Medicare Cuts To Plug Budget Gap
  Democratic proposals to cut Medicare spending are good policy, said New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, at a Health Affairs Media Breakfast this morning. The problem, according to Gregg, is that Democrats want to use the money saved to fund new benefits under health reform legislation, rather than [...]
- Radiation Hazards Illustrate Need For Industry-Wide Safety Response
  Editor’s Note: In addition to Peter Pronovost (photo and biography above), authors of this post include Julius Pham, Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Sara Singer, Assistant Professor, Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, Massachusetts General Hospital; Jerod Loeb […]
- Shock Me, Tube Me, Line Me: An ER Doc Reassesses DNRs
  In “Shock Me, Tube Me, Line Me,” a Narrative Matters essay in the February 2010 issue of Health Affairs, emergency physician Boris Veysman sets forth his own version of an advance directive and challenges common perceptions about care at the end of life. An excerpted version of Veysman’s essay appears in today’s Washington Post Health [...]
- Death Of A Sales Job (A Three Act Ploy)
  With apologies to Arthur Miller … President Obama went back before the cameras again Wednesday, providing yet another recycling of fading rationales for his health reform product that more voters would rather leave on the Capitol Hill store shelves than purchase. But “attention must be paid” whenever the president speaks. He tried to claim t […]
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