Rich employer benefits are not always so attractive, sick patients are not always money losers for insurers, and hospitals and doctors are now health care preventers rather than health care providers. This is the bizarre world to which Obamacare has brought us.
The latest enrollment data from the Obamacare exchanges show that three out of four Hoosiers are purchasing decent coverage—not the super high-deductible plans that concerned hospitals.
Ever since World War 2, when employers started using health benefits to compete for workers, the less employees had to pay toward health insurance premiums the more attractive the benefits. But under Obamacare, this axiom will not always be true.
Since WellPoint says it’s not losing money on the exchanges—at this point—that’s encouraging news for those who would like the Obamacare exchanges to remain a viable option.
St. Vincent Health has been sending roughly $50 million to $70 million every year to its parent company, St. Louis-based Ascension Health, to support other hospitals in Ascension’s 93-hospital network.
Negative perceptions of the health care rollout have eased, a new poll finds. But overall, two-thirds of Americans say things still aren’t going well.
In spite of offers to strike a short-term extension, UnitedHealthcare and Indiana University Health are still hung up in contract negotiations on one key point: Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare wants to create a multi-tiered network of providers and services that would offer the lowest co-pays and deductibles for favored hospital systems—which IU Health is not.
In my financial situation, I could save from 2 percent to 30 percent buying health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. I suspect a lot of small companies and their workers will see similar results.
Congress’ recent willingness to play hardball with providers is driving providers to cautiously embrace concepts—like pay-for-performance and keeping patients out of the hospitals—they have long resisted.
There are clear signs that hospitals nationally, and even here in Indianapolis, are actually starting to make good on their promises to keep patients healthier and out of the hospital.
New research shows that expanding Medicaid won’t save money, in spite of the claims of Obamacare supporters, but it will provide modest help to patients’ health and pocketbooks, in spite of conservative critics’ contention to the contrary.
When Gov. Mike Pence tries next month to negotiate a Medicaid expansion deal in a meeting with the Obama administration, it will be a clash of the conservative and liberal approaches to fighting poverty.
Obamacare has officially arrived, but both conservatives and liberals are calling it awful. That means the real debate over health reform is just beginning.
The windfall comes at a critical moment for health care reform, which becomes “real” for many Americans on Jan. 1 as coverage through the insurance exchanges and key patient protections kick in.
When Joe Swedish was named the next CEO of WellPoint Inc., investors frowned. At first.
The deadline to enroll in plans that begin Jan. 1 now is midnight Tuesday for most of the U.S. On Monday, healthcare.gov fielded nearly 50,000 simultaneous visitors, triggering a queuing system.
In the Christmas spirit of hope, I’m offering a reading list of several optimistic reports about health care reform—even though many of my recent posts, and the mood of the country in general, have been decidedly downbeat.
The Obama administration has been releasing more price and quality information, but it is coming in a rather useless form for patients. That’s a problem for the prospects of consumer-driven health care.
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.
A new Medicaid expansion deal with the Republican governor of Iowa OK’d a cost-sharing requirement similar to what Indiana Gov. Mike Pence wants. But the Obama administration says it won’t extend that deal as low as Pence would like to go.
