Health reform that would cover millions of uninsured Americans would theoretically send a flood of new
patients to physicians. Yet in Indiana and nationwide, there’s already a shortage of doctors.
The Indiana Division of Aging wants to change Medicaid rates to nursing homes to reward quality care and penalize the lack
of it, leaving the industry divided over whether to support the groundbreaking rule or to seek revisions and a slower phase-in.
The stitching together of doctors and hospitals—two groups that historically have kept each other at arm’s length—is
a trend picking up speed locally and nationally and could accelerate even further if Congress passes health care reform.
Most business groups cheered when Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., introduced a health reform bill with no so-called public option,
a controversial government-run insurance plan for working adults. But there’s a big group that would like
to see it back on the table—hospitals.
The tool the administration is using to measure waste shows that expenses in Indianapolis might be low enough
not to get whacked. But the region isn’t performing so well that it’s likely to get much praise, either.
With the uncertainty surrounding health care reform, only
one thing seems definite: Some level of change is coming. In that light, employers have two options: Fret over the impact
these changes might have on their businesses, or act now, meeting the needs of today while forging a plan for addressing a
changed landscape.
Since John Lechleiter was named CEO 18 months ago, he’s bet that Eli Lilly and Co. could face down its looming patent challenges
by launching innovative new medicines. Today’s announcement of 5,500 job cuts by the end of 2011 and a restructuring of the
company’s business units ups the ante on that bet, while indicating that it isn’t working yet.
Eli Lilly and Co. will cut 5,500 jobs by the end of 2011 as it tries to cut $1 billion in expenses before it loses revenue
from its bestselling drug, Zyprexa. Lilly CEO John Lechleiter said he did not know how many of those cuts would occur in central
Indiana. But with
13,600 employees working in the Indianapolis area, he acknowledged the largest chunk of reductions likely would come here.
Eli Lilly and Co. and its peers might be back in Congress’ sights as lawmakers hunt for more ways to cut health care
costs. A new study in the influential Health Affairs journal concludes that European drugmakers operating
in markets with pharmaceutical price controls have produced proportionally more innovations than their U.S. counterparts.
If President Barack Obama gets what he wants in his health care plan — covering all Americans and barring insurers from
denying coverage — some analysts say individuals could wind up paying higher premiums.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels outlined his concerns about some of the health care proposals being debated in Congress in a letter
sent to the state’s congressional delegation and released by his office yesterday.
Bruce Hetrick’s patronizing and dismissive reference [in his Aug. 24 column] to the idea of death panels (“There is,
of course, no such clause or intent in any health-reform legislation”) is insulting to any reader who has followed the
debate over health care reform.
The Indianapolis-based Indiana Health Information Exchange today began sharing electronic medical records with two similar
organizations across a multi-regional network, the group announced this morning.
A consumer group says health insurers UnitedHealth and WellPoint pressured their employees to contact members of Congress
and lobby against health care reform proposals that the companies disagreed with.
A health care reform push that aims at the insurance industry misses a much bigger target in its quest to lower rising costs,
WellPoint Inc. CEO Angela Braly said in a speech.
Indianapolis physicians are mixed on the merits of a government-run, "public" health insurance plan. How reforms
might affect their pay is another major concern.
With the Obama administration backing away from a government-run, "public" plan, the insurance
industry faces a much smaller threat in the form of privately run insurance co-ops.
There was a time, of course, when journalists had the time, space, resources and respect to sort things out for us.
If one of the more liberal health care reform proposals becomes law, Hoosier taxpayers would have to spend $425 more per
person every year for the next decade, according to a study released Aug. 4 by Florida-based conservative policy group Arduin
Laffer & Moore Econometrics.
As a hearing-impaired, migraine-suffering, diabetic cancer survivor who’s also the father of a cancer survivor and the widower
of a cancer victim, I’ve experienced more than my fair share of American health care.
