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Archive for the "Health Policy/Reform" category

Op Ed: Emanuel NYT Editorial is Irresponsible and Naive

Zeke Emanuel’s editorial in the New York Times — The End of Health Insurance Companies — really got my blood boiling. It’s irresponsible and naive. Former Obama advisor Emanuel “predicts”: By 2020, the American health insurance industry will be extinct. Insurance companies will be replaced by accountable care organizations — groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers [...]

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Op-Ed: ACP Doctors, Thank You for Acknowledging a Law of the Universe

Resources are finite. They just are. This is not an opinion, it is a law of the universe. Yet, for my lifetime, I have been incredibly frustrated by medicine’s cultural and practical lack of acknowledgement of this law. FINALLY, the American College of Physicians (ACP) got it. Kaiser Health News describes the revelation: The American [...]

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Welcome to the Blogosphere! Voice on Population Health

The Care Continuum Alliance announces a timely new blog: Voice on Population Health. Tracey Moorhead, President and CEO of the Care Continuum Alliance, writes today’s inaugural post. She persuasively notes the increasing importance of the full continuum of population health interventions – wellness, prevention and other approaches to improving health, reducing disease risk and raising productivity. Bob [...]

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Holiday Shopping Guide Edition of the Health Wonk Review

Check out the best of  health care policy punditry on the Wright on Health blog.  Brad Wright hosts the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review. No tag for this post.

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Leavitt ACO Report: Overstating or Understating Accountable Care Activity?

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) have been likened to a unicorn — a fantastic creature that is vested with mythical powers. But no one has actually seen one. a camel — a horse designed by a committee, one that already has its nose in the tent With this background, you can begin to appreciate the difficulty of [...]

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Will Health Plans Continue to Buy Up Hospitals?

I doubt it. IMHO, the recent acquisition by Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of West Penn Allegheny Health System (WPAHS) for $475 M is unique to local market conditions. It was done as a last resort and should not be taken as a signal that health plans are starting a hospital buying binge. Why are hospitals [...]

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Trend Spotting: 1) Medicare ACO Dead-in-the-Water, 2) Payers Awaken to ACO Opportunities

It’s time to call it — the Medicare Shared Savings (SS) ACO is dead-in-the-water. Ironically — at the same time — commercial payers are awakening to ACO opportunities. Please read further. Tags: accountable care organizations, ACO, hospital, Medicare

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Aetna, Cigna, Wellpoint Recreating Their Business Models

Major U.S. health insurers, including Aetna Inc., Humana Inc. and WellPoint Inc., are retooling to become more than just health plans, in the wake of the federal health-care overhaul that is changing the rules for the industry’s core business. Diversification plans, touted in meetings with investors this year, include stepped up acquisitions and partnerships that [...]

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Is Hospital-Physician Integration Sustainable?

Reprinted courtesy of MCOL. Perspectives on a Selected Key Topic |     April 2011/May 2011     |   Volume Three Issue Two Will a material number of hospitals and their core medical staffs, that are relatively independent, evolve into highly integrated delivery systems during this decade, and why? William J DeMarco MA, CMC President and CEO, Pendulum HealthCare [...]

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