By Kim Krisberg Friday wasn’t a great day for public health. That day, Congress voted to raid the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund to the tune of $5 billion. The move comes as part of a deal to delay scheduled cuts to Medicare physician payment rates and was part of a legislative […]
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released some disappointing news: several demonstration projects aiming to contain growth in healthcare spending are not showing cost savings. Specifically, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have been focusing on programs involving either disease management and care coordination or value-based payment systems for the fee-for-service Medicare population. A […]
One thing that drove me nuts during the healthcare reform debate was the scare tactic of claiming that proposed legislation would result in rationing of healthcare. The problem with making such a claim is that healthcare is already rationed in the US. We ration healthcare based on insurance status and ability to pay. And, as […]
A New York Times article by Jane Gross highlights a costly healthcare problem: avoidable hospital readmissions, which affect one in five patients and account for $17.4 billion of the current $102.6 billion Medicare budget. (When people talk about readmissions, they’re generally referring to an admission within 30 days of the previous admission for the same […]