If you’re just reading the headlines, jobs and the economy have displaced access to affordable health insurance as the electorate’s top domestic concern with six months to go until Election Day. But digging a little deeper into the results of a new poll from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it appears that voters also believe […]

Jason Shafrin of the blog, Healthcare Economist, hosts this week’s Health Wonk Review. He’s written the biweekly round-up of the best of health policy blogging in “newspaper” format. It’s a great quick scan of what’s being debated in the health business and policy blogs, with Health Affairs Blog providing the lead story on health reform and the ‘08 […]

Americans need and deserve health information technology (IT). As the chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications Inc. and the only business representative on a federal commission to develop a strategy for health care IT standards, I have spent considerable time over the past several years promoting this technological necessity.  
In addition, Verizon helped found an unprecedented, […]

Editor’s Note: This post was written by several of the 2007-08 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellows. These fellowships allow mid-career health services researchers and practitioners from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom to spend up to 12 months in the United States, conducting original research and working with leading U.S. health policy experts. The lead […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of posts in response to Jon Gabel’s article “Where Do I Send Thee? Does Physician-Ownership Affect Referral Patterns To Ambulatory Surgical Centers?,” published March 18 on the Health Affairs Web site. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) began the series, which will also feature Chris Cassel.
Policymakers are increasingly concerned over incentives facing physicians to refer more lucrative, well-insured […]

Editor’s Note: Today, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) kicks off a series of posts on Jon Gabel’s article “Where Do I Send Thee? Does Physician-Ownership Affect Referral Patterns To Ambulatory Surgical Centers?,” published March 18 on the Health Affairs Web site. The series will also feature posts from Jerry Cromwell and Chris Cassel.
To paraphrase the […]

Like a recurring illness, stalemate looms again over the prospects for settling the issue of payment levels to private plans in Medicare, which now exceed the average per beneficiary cost of traditional fee-for-service Medicare by 13 percent, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. MedPAC recommends eliminating the differential, which funds extra benefits for private-plan […]

James C. Robinson, Ph.D., who became editor-in-chief of Health Affairs last September, has decided to return to the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Kaiser Permanente Distinguished Professorship of Health Economics in the School of Public Health.
Robinson will step down as Health Affairs editor on July 1, 2008. The journal’s founding editor, John […]

To round out a week of “most-read” lists (top 10 Health Affairs Blog posts of 2007 and of January-February 2008), we are pleased to announce the most-read Health Affairs journal articles published in 2007. All articles below are free access for 2 weeks—through March 20, 2008.

“Health Spending Projections Through 2016: Modest Changes Obscure Part D’s […]

Comparing health systems, the growth of U.S. health spending, and proposals to fix Medicare physician payment topped the January-February 2008 most-read list for the Health Affairs Blog. Sign up for email or RSS feed alerts to stay on top of new postings. Additional commenting always welcome.

U.S. Worst At Beating Death From Treatable Illness
by Jane Hiebert-White
HEALTH […]

For your Leap Day reading pleasure, we offer here the list of Top 10 most-read Health Affairs Blog Posts of 2007. Next up—Top 10 for January-February 2008. Additional commenting always welcome.

INSURANCE: A Closer Look At HSAs
by Uwe Reinhardt
REFORM: Musings On SiCKO, July 4th, and Visions of America
by Sarah Dine
HEALTH REFORM: Redefining Health Care
by Michael E. […]

The good people in the Office of the Actuary (OA) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) take great pains every year to summarize and explain their health spending forecast without spin or exaggeration. The editors of Health Affairs are perennially grateful to them for taking an approach that helps the journal fulfill […]

Editor’s Note: This is the seventh and last post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, Mina Matin, Jay Crosson, Frank Opelka, and Eugene Rich have contributed earlier posts.
One of the advantages of coming last in a series of blog postings is that I can comment […]

Today’s new Health Wonk Review rounds up posts from the political (would an Obama presidency energize young adults to demand entitlement reform?) to the analytical (John Wennberg’s practice variation work, the Medicare SGR debate, and more). This latest compendium of the best of health policy blogging is hosted today by Merrill Goozner of GoozNews, with great insights from […]

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, Mina Matin, Jay Crosson, and Frank Opelka have contributed earlier posts. The series will also feature a post by Gail Wilensky.
In January 2007 the 110th Congress convened with the Democrats newly in the majority. Among the […]

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, Mina Matin, and Jay Crosson have contributed earlier posts, and in the coming days the series will feature posts by Eugene Rich and Gail Wilensky. 
There will be little relief in Medicare expenditures in the coming years as the number […]

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, and Mina Matin have contributed earlier posts, and in the coming days the series will feature posts by Frank Opelka, Eugene Rich, and Gail Wilensky.
Medicare expenditures for physician services continue to be impacted by the annual growth in volume […]

In March 2008, the Washington, D.C., City Council will decide whether to give final approval to The Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act, which would grant at least some “paid sick leave to all workers in the city,” the Washington Post recently reported. The article notes that “San Francisco is the only U.S. city with […]

Editor’s Note: This is the third post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg and Robert Berenson have contributed earlier posts, and in the coming days the series will feature posts by Jay Crosson, Frank Opelka, Eugene Rich, and Gail Wilensky.
Mina Matin is the lead author of this post; she is a third-year resident in family […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. The first post by Paul Ginsburg appeared yesterday. In the coming days, the series will feature posts by Jay Crosson, Mina Matin, Frank Opelka, Eugene Rich, and Gail Wilensky. 
To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) gets no respect. In this […]