Reform Rodeo

1. The American Medical Association: In the face of new health reform requirements that are now in effect, many of the top insurers have dropped child-only health plans.

2. Kaiser Health News Daily Report: Health Care reform’s elimination of discrimination based on pre-existing conditions has not fully materialized; In a sign of what could be a backlash against health care reform, the 3M corporation announced that it will stop offering its health insurance plan to retirees. Click here for the Daily Report.

3. In a sea of pessimism, the New England Journal of Medicine explores the lessons of a health care success story: Grand Junction, Colorado — one of the cities that Atul Gawande detailed in his celebrated article in the New Yorker.

4. At the Health Care Blog, Michael Lake explores recent trends in HIT, while providing many helpful links.

5. Webcast 1: On Tuesday, October 5th: Maggie Mahar and others will be participating in a webcast where they will discuss health care reform. Click here for Mahar’s overview on her Health Beat blog, including a link to the freely-accessible live stream.

Reform Rodeo: PPACA Provisions Go Live; Victor Fuchs; Physicals; Google Health

1. PPACA News: Kaiser Health News reports on the health care overhaul changes that are occurring this week, including eliminating copays for preventive services and allowing children to stay on their parents’ health plans until 26 years of age.

2. Quality not Quantity: Famed health care economist Victor Fuchs discusses the importance that health care must place on increasing the quality of life as opposed to increasing longevity.

2b. On the Health Care Blog, Matthew Holt interviews Fuchs. Maggie Mahar provides extended commentary.

3. Examining the Exam: NPR has a piece on technology’s role in the fading art of the physical examination.

4. Google Health’s Health: On the Health Care Blog, John Moore of Chilimark Research discusses a recent meeting he had with Google about the future of their once promising but recently stagnant cloud-based EHR system.

5. Mark Your Calendars: Health Affairs announces an October 5th event they will be hosting in Washington D.C. which look at comparative effectiveness research.

Reform Rodeo

[Ed. Note: HRW welcomes back Jordan Cohen from his work in Washington at HHS this summer-- the place just wasn't the same without him]

Waste: The New York Times provides an overview of a new study detailing health care wastefulness — which the Times reports as being the first study to quantify the problem.

Berwick’s Pilots: Newly appointed Medicare director Donald Berwick is pushing for hundreds of new pilot programs that would seek to innovate the delivery of health care.

Prognostication: The Health Care Blog’s David Kibbe and Brian Klepper look beyond meaningful use and distill five future trends of patient health data and clinical health information technology.

Meaningful Use FAQs: For those with questions on meaningful use, John Halamka has created FAQs.

PPACA and Employees: Researchers at RAND have published a study predicting PPACA’s effect on workers’ health insurance coverage.

Medicaid Outside the Box: Health Affairs’ Michael O’Grady and Jennifer Baxendell Young have published a post that discusses new ideas for Medicaid financing.

Reform Rodeo

1. Duff Wilson of the New York Times discusses the lack of transparency with respect to industry’s payments to doctors.

2. John Halamka gives a nice overview of the various PPACA initiatives–including pilot programs–that involve HIT.

3. A group of lawyers discuss the impact that the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United could have on health care.

4. Matthew Holt at The Health Care Blog describes a new poll conducted about PHRs, and some of the results are surprising.

5. Health Affairs has a nice summary of a round table discussion on reforming CMS in the era of Don Berwick.

6. Jason Shafrin of the Health Care Economist gives an overview of a new paper by Basu and Philipson that question some of the common assumptions of the economics of comparative effectiveness research.

Reform Rodeo: Latest News & Interviews; CER; the Constitution; HIT; Robotic Surgery

1. News: Kaiser Health News keeps you up to date by rounding up various stories on the Dems’ latest down-to-the-wire push on health reform. Their coverage of Representative Dennis Kucinich’s (and other reluctant Dems’) endorsement of the bill is here.

2. Betting on Health Care: The New York Times asks health wonks for opinions on the chances of passing health reform. Respondents include Robert Reich, former secretary of labor Gail Wilensky, Project Hope; Paul Starr, professor of public policy;  James C. Capretta, Ethics and Public Policy Center; Karen Davenport, Center for American Progress; Jacob S. Hacker, political science professor.

3. Evidence-based Medicine: A group at the New England Journal of Medicine proposes 5 steps to advance one of the most promising–yet often ignored–means of reforming our health care system: comparative effectiveness research.

4. Deem and Pass: Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy discusses the constitutionality of the “deem and pass.” Regardless of its constitutionality, Ezra Klein exposes some factual inaccuracies in recent reporting on the tactic.

5. The Blues: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette alerts us to a lawsuit by Highmark Inc. against the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance, which claims that the Department exceeded its authority when challenging Highmark’s proposed merger with Independence Blue Cross.

6. Meaningful Use Partial Credit: John Halamka at Life As A Healthcare CIO discusses the aggressive thresholds for meaningful use that have been set in the most recent rules, and what the HIT Policy Committee is doing to assuage those concerns.

7. Wild Card: A new TED talk about the current state of robotic surgery. An article covering the topic can be found here.

Reform Rodeo

1. The Final Push: Kaiser Health News compiles the latest news stories detailing the final push that is underway by Democrats and the White House to try and pass their comprehensive health reform plan.

2. Rep. Paul Ryan: Ezra Klein interviews Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; the two discuss the economic impact of the Democrats’ health reform plan.

3. Abortion: Tim Jost does a yeoman’s job of laying out the differences between the House and Senate bills regarding abortion funding.

4. Health Summit Redux: Ewe Reinhardt discusses the lessons learned from the Health Summit.

5. Health IT: John Halamka covers the new HITECH-related NPRM that HHS recently released. The newest NPRM deals with the process of certifying EHR systems under the CMS’s incentive-based framework for meaningful EHR use.

6. Health IT Review: For those trying to catch up on health IT developments, Computerworld has a critical yet thorough account of the high speed push towards EHR adoption.

7. Isn’t That Nice:  A feel good story about the The Oracle of Omaha  and Dr. Atul Gawande.

Reform Rodeo

1a. Health Reform Post-Brown: Kaiser Health News Staff Writer Jenny Gold discusses the Democrats’ seemingly new strategy of focusing on repealing health insurers’ antitrust exemption.

2. Bending the Curve, Success Story: Maggie Mahar over at Health Beat has a wonderful overview of  Maryland’s successful approach to reducing health care costs.

3. Comparative Effectiveness: Dr. Nortin Hadler offers a forceful and nuanced view on the role of comparative effectiveness research.

4. Medicare and Technology: The New England Journal of Medicine has an interesting piece on how Medicare determines which health-related technologies to reimburse.

5. Quack Attack: Over at Science-based Medicine, Dr. Steven Novella covers the retraction of Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 article that claimed to link autism with the mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccine.

6. Neuro News: The New York Times reports on how new studies may question some bedside techniques used to diagnosis the degree of brain activity in severely brain-injured patients.

7. Bonus: For those interested in more health-related links, Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters hosts the current Health Wonk Review

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