With Obamacare, insurers will still find ways to avoid risk
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.
Medicaid
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The bill for Hoosiers’ excess health care spending: About $5 billion per year
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.
Is lack of competition hiking Indiana exchange premiums?
Only four health insurers are offering policies in the Obamacare exchange in Indiana, whereas 17 have withdrawn from the market since 2010.
Republicans making same old mistake on health reform
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.
Finding where the money is in health care
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.
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.
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.
State officials explain extension for Healthy Indiana Plan
Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Debra Minott took questions on the Healthy Indiana Plan two weeks after the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed off on a one-year extension and some sizable changes to the program, including a new limit on earnings.
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.
Analyst foresees managed care growth in 2014
Major health insurers like WellPoint Inc. are in line for another year of growth, as the health care overhaul implements key elements in its push to cover millions of uninsured people.
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.
Healthy Indiana Plan extends trial run a year
Indiana is being granted a limited extension of its Healthy Indiana Plan while state and federal health care leaders continue negotiating a possible Medicaid expansion.
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?
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.
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.”
Get ready to see for-profit religious hospitals
Hospitals already operate like for-profit businesses, but now a financial pinch is making more hospitals join their ranks. Aggressive moves by St. Vincent’s parent organization are just the beginning.
Would Medicaid expansion have saved hospital jobs?
As the Pence administration continues to negotiate with the feds, local hospitals say their recent cuts would not have been changed even if Indiana had expanded its Medicaid program.
Want Cliffs Notes on health reform? Look at Wishard
Soon to change its name to Eskenazi Health, the county-owned hospital in Indianapolis is using a business model that tries to promote patients’ health, rather than merely treat their diseases.
Physician pay: What goes up must come down
Compensation in the most common physician specialties has been growing much faster than inflation for the past five years. Now, financially squeezed hospitals are set to reverse that trend.