Health Affairs

On June 29, 2011, the Sixth Circuit federal court of appeals held that Congress has the power under the Constitution to adopt the minimum coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act. The decision in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama is very significant for several reasons.  First, it is the first ruling by a federal... Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, the federal government and the nation marked Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day. In a statement noting the occasion, Health And Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said: “We have a responsibility to help Americans who have lived through trauma, especially our nation’s service men and women who may be dealing with PTSD.  We... Read the rest of this entry »

The pace at which articles have been written about Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) has been nothing short of frenetic. It appears every possible healthcare stakeholder has shared ideas regarding how the Shared Savings Program in general, and ACOs in particular should be structured. The breath of perspectives has likewise been astounding.  Organizations with only a... Read the rest of this entry »

First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign, launched on February 9, 2010, initially closely fit what obesity research data calls for, with its focus on children and its attention to exercise and better eating (rather than dieting), including its very title, “Let’s Move.”  At the launch, the first lady announced four major areas of focus: providing... Read the rest of this entry »

With cardiac services contributing 25 to 40 percent of a hospital’s net revenues, do new cardiac surgery programs improve access or exacerbate the duplication of services? To answer this question, the authors of a new Health Affairs Web First article published June 23 examined Medicare claims data to identify where new cardiac surgery programs were... Read the rest of this entry »

On July 7, 2011, Health Affairs will unveil its July 2011 issue, “New Directions In Systems Innovations.” The issue explores ongoing innovations in health care organization, delivery and financing across a broad front – from Vermont’s recent passage of single payer legislation, to new responsibilities for hospital boards of trustees as a consequence of the... Read the rest of this entry »

The latest Health Wonk Review is available at Boston Health News. Tinker Ready presents a great collection of some of the most interesting health policy blogging of the last couple of weeks, including Joe White’s Health Affairs Blog post on the merits — and demerits — of the now ubiquitous phrase “bending the cost curve.”

A new study by Avalere Health, presented at the recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, analyzed the pharmacy claims of 10,508 commercially-insured and Medicare patients who required oral therapy for cancer. The purpose of the study was to assess the effects of cost-sharing on the abandonment of these medications. The analysis showed... Read the rest of this entry »

I have put together a listing here of some foundation-related blog posts that you may want to check out. Now that summer has arrived, perhaps things are slowing down in your workplace, and you now have time for some professional reading! Links to a wide variety of posts follow. Incidentally, if you work for a... Read the rest of this entry »

For those who assume that the next generation of Americans will live longer than their parents, a new “three-dimensional” method of forecasting vital health statistics shows how this may not prove to be the case. Most Americans enjoy better health today than in the past, with significant declines in death rates from the top three... Read the rest of this entry »

Across the country, policy experts are heralding accountable care organizations (ACOs) as the way to rethink the delivery of higher quality and more efficient care. Yet Medicaid, which cares for many of the nation’s sickest and highest-cost patients, has been largely absent from the ACO conversation. Now that the June 6 deadline for comments to... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: This is the latest in a series of posts by Timothy Jost on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  Earlier posts have analyzed some important guidances, as well as provisions governing state waiver requests, student health plans, premium review (proposed rule and final rule), medical loss ratios, insurance exchanges, coverage for pre-existing conditions, appeals... Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Rita Redberg MD, a cardiologist and Chief Editor of Archives of Internal Medicine, described the American health system’s penchant for delivering high volumes of “procedures and devices [to] patients who get no benefit and incur risks from them.” The culprit, of course, is fee-for-service reimbursement, used by Medicare, Medicaid and commercial... Read the rest of this entry »

John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) says in a June 8 Health Affairs Blog entry that the Public Health Service 340B drug discount program is part of a “web of [federal] regulations that are preventing life saving drugs from reaching the patients who need them.” More specifically, he says that the... Read the rest of this entry »

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will change the health care landscape for all safety net providers and those they serve.  Blue Shield of California Foundation and Health Affairs are pleased to present results from a new poll by Langer Research Associates identifying the perspectives that low-income Californians have on their healthcare –... Read the rest of this entry »

Political scientists emphasize the importance of “framing” in policy debates.  The health care cost control debate in the United States has been reframed by the promotion of a metaphor, “bending the curve.”  This metaphor has merits but they are decidedly mixed. The sudden popularity of the idea of “bending the cost curve” is significant because... Read the rest of this entry »

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is often criticized as inefficient compared to its European counterpart, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), particularly in the field of oncology. However, a new study published online today by Health Affairs suggests otherwise: For new oncology drugs between 2003 and 2010, the median time for FDA approval was... Read the rest of this entry »

A new Health Policy Brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation describes the provision in the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that will gradually reduce federal payments to the Medicare Advantage program. Roughly one in four of the nation’s 47 million Medicare beneficiaries currently participate in Medicare Advantage. These are private health... Read the rest of this entry »

Read how community-based organizations can use results of a foundation-funded health survey. On June 2, St. Luke’s Health Initiatives (SLHI) presented information about and findings from the 2010 Arizona Health Survey to an audience of more than 100 community-based organizations in our state. Our aim was to share with these community leaders how that data... Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a belated shout-out to the most recent edition of the Health Wonk Review. Matthew Holt and John Irvine of The Health Care Blog do a good job of presenting an interesting collection of health policy blogging.