There is good evidence that new technology deployed via new methods of medicine across the entire health care system can reduce the need for physicians. But there are too many barriers for such changes to occur in time to cut off the surge in demand brought on by Obamacare.
Based on some very rough assumptions, I calculate that Hoosiers could see premiums 14 percent to 28 percent higher in 2015, due in part to low enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges in 2014.
In response to insurers’ “zero-premium” strategy, hospitals figure out their own way to game the tax subsidies available in the new Obamacare exchanges: pay premiums for their patients.
IU Health is working with a hospital-based health plan in Pittsburgh that is now directly challenging the Blue Cross health plan there. Could the same thing happen here?
In spite of President Obama’s promises that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, the president’s health reform law is spurring health insurers to make him a liar on that point too.
It’s no secret the growth of the U.S. economy slowed in the 2000s after the go-go decade preceding it. But the U.S. health care system—hospitals, doctors, drug companies, device makers and health insurers—apparently didn’t get that memo.
Obamacare put an end to health insurers’ worst methods for avoiding risk. But that doesn’t mean insurers have ended their risk-shifting ways. Not at all.
Hoosiers’ poor health, combined with an aggressive health care system and an uncompetitive health insurance sector, means Hoosiers, in spite of the fact that they earn just 86 cents for every dollar earned by the average American, are spending nearly $1.13 on health care for every dollar spent by Americans.
Why are Indiana’s hospitals cutting jobs. Because they’re spooked about cuts to Medicare payments. They should be.
Obamacare’s exchanges are requiring working Americans to grasp minute details of their employers’ health plans in order to avoid a nasty surprise from the IRS.
Only four health insurers are offering policies in the Obamacare exchange in Indiana, whereas 17 have withdrawn from the market since 2010.
Rather than railing incessantly against Obamacare, Republicans would do themselves and the country a favor if they finally agreed on a common alternative for fixing the health care system.
More than half of the $2.5 trillion consumers spend annually on health care in the United States flows to hospitals and doctors, with drug companies and health insurers trailing well behind.
With payment reform and new technology, it’s plausible that health care will shift from being a bricks and mortar business to an information business–bringing us higher quality and lower costs. That’s exciting.
The IU researchers, as have many before them, approach health care jobs as if every one of them is an unmixed blessing to the Indiana economy. Employers and workers could have easily told them that’s not the case.
If you’re frustrated that health care prices are both unavailable and incomprehensible, you’re not alone. Your physician is in the dark too.
Even in the face of alarmingly high hospital prices, no one should conclude that hospitals are the bad guys in the health care system. Hospital executives are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing as the business leaders of their institutions.
A new study found that Indianapolis-area hospitals are charging patients insured by their employers 264 percent more for outpatient services than the federal Medicare program pays for the exact same services at the same hospitals.
Medicare data show some county-owned hospitals around Indianapolis scored better than big-name hospitals like IU Health and Community.
Patients, in spite of what it may feel like, pay only a tiny fraction of the total health care bill directly from their own pockets. It’s no wonder then that prices and good service are hard to find.
