Several commentators have talked about a death spiral for the Obamacare health insurance exchanges. What do they mean? One of the keys for any insurance plan to work is that a lot of healthy people have to sign up to cover the costs of the sick. For car or homeowner’s insurance, losses...
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In a post I wrote about 7 months ago, I stated that it was too soon to tell what the real effect of Obamacare on the overall cost of healthcare/health insurance was going to be. Unstable membership populations, loss-leader offerings by insurance companies, and other factors means that it will probably take...
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I love opportunities for a good snarky belly laugh. I got one recently. A report in the New York Times by Robert Pear talks about how several key Harvard faculty have, for years, advocated for national healthcare reforms that turned into Obamacare. As a result (among many other issues that the...
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A recent report in USA Today disclosed the range of deductibles in the silver health insurance plans under the federal exchange of Obamacare. The authors concluded that in regions with less competition, the costs were higher. Families that make more than 250% of the federal poverty level — about $60,000 for...
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First of all, I hope everyone had a happy holiday season and I wish everyone a happy New Year’s. As my longtime readers know, there will are lots of things I hope improve in our healthcare system in 2015, but I’ll just mention one wish today. My wish is that the...
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It’s the reenrollment period for the Obamacare plans. Estimates before Obamacare was created on its effects on costs were all over the map. Some pundits thought costs would come down; some pundits but costs would go up. The early returns are in, but as might be expected, the findings are all...
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If anyone thinks ACOs or other ACA concoctions have impacted the cost of healthcare, here are two examples of how the status quo has not changed. First, comes an article from the New York Times. I told the story of a man who had neck surgery http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring-surprise-medical-bills.html?_r=0.  When he got his...
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A recent report from Rutgers University entitled “Unhappy, Worried, and Pessimistic: Americans in the Aftermath of the Great Recession” found that 70% of respondents described the typical American worker as not secure in their jobs and 68% of workers are highly stressed. A quote from the study is, “The typical American...
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Kaiser Permanente has been a leader in integrated healthcare for decades. It started as a plan to cover workers building the Hoover Dam, and has spread to become a dominant force primarily on the west coast. It has over six million members in California alone. Kaiser does a lot of things...
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I imagine many of you have heard about the fantastic article in Time magazine called Bitter Pill, written by Steven Brill at: http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/ In a nutshell, it exposes the absurd system of chargemasters and bills the hospitals use to obfuscate their prices. It exposes the unconscionable reality that the uninsured, who...
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