Overbuilt, overstaffed, top heavy, hospitals ripe for cuts
Before this year’s cuts, Indiana hospitals had added 12,000 jobs over the past six years, even as private employers across Indiana, collectively, added no net new workers.
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Anthem prez: Expect ‘crickets chirping’ on Oct. 1
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield President Rob Hillman expects a slow start to the Obamacare exchanges, with fewer than one-third of uninsured people buying coverage there.
Want health reform? Change these 6 things all at once
Meaningful health reform has proved so difficult because it requires simultaneous change across a massive system. Here’s a post-Obamacare plan to do exactly that.
Hey IU, someone has to pay for those health care jobs
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.
Top 10 blogs for the business of health care
I follow these blogs to keep up on health care financing. Tell me what else I should be reading.
Doctors, as well as patients, in the dark about prices
If you’re frustrated that health care prices are both unavailable and incomprehensible, you’re not alone. Your physician is in the dark too.
Analysis: Obamacare exchanges will push Anthem’s premiums lower
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana expects the average premiums it charges on the health insurance exchanges being created by Obamacare to be about $60 per year less for each of its health plan members than they would have been without the law.
Hospitals aren’t bad guys; they’re just business guys
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.
Ouch! Indy hospitals charging employers three times more than Medicare
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.
Only now is Pence team starting Medicaid talks
Gov. Mike Pence’s go-slow approach could push an expansion of Medicaid eligibility in Indiana to the end of 2014. And he’s OK with that.
Which Indy hospitals do it right the first time?
Medicare data show some county-owned hospitals around Indianapolis scored better than big-name hospitals like IU Health and Community.
Patients get what they pay for
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.
Swapping Obamacare for a single-payer system?
How would a single-payer national health insurance program change the finances for employers, workers, doctors and hospitals?
A dose of light reading
Starting with this post, I’m going to periodically give you a peek at my reading list. I’ll highlight reports and reportage that I have found either helpful or provocative. I hope you do, too.
OrthoIndy channeling Walmart in comeback bid
The local orthopedic surgeons are presenting themselves as low-cost providers in an attempt to reverse growth restrictions imposed by Obamacare.
Expect deja vu: Obamacare won’t fix health care
By and large, Obamacare will leave in place the same major problems in the health care systems that existed before the law was passed—in both Indiana and across the nation.
Board suggested busy Evans let go of AIT
Michael Evans was juggling two companies and two newborn twins when his board of directors suggested it was time for a new CEO of AIT Laboratories. He was replaced by venture capitalist Matt Neff on Monday.
Already a wreck, the worst is yet to come with Obamacare
Obamacare is destined to fail for one key reason: it will make health insurance cost more and buy less.
Relax, rejoice: Obamacare will revive health care
This is the first of three blog posts, each of which will make a compelling case for one of three distinct positions on Obamacare in Indiana: why it will succeed, why it will fail and why it will be a “non-event.”
Reworking Obamacare’s numbers: Half of Hoosiers to gain, half to lose
Digging into the filings by health insurers, I concluded that half of Hoosiers buying individual coverage next year on exchanges will pay less than before Obamacare. The other half will pay more.