Why insurers want to limit your choice of doctor
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.
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Pence asks to meet with Sebelius over HIP expansion
Pence wants to expand Medicaid coverage using some form of the Healthy Indiana Plan, which currently provides insurance to about 40,000 Hoosiers who agree to make monthly contributions to health savings accounts. The Obama administration has questioned that feature of the program.
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.
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.
The frightening future that’s haunting hospitals
Why are Indiana’s hospitals cutting jobs. Because they’re spooked about cuts to Medicare payments. They should be.
VC headwinds continue for life sciences firms
Indiana life sciences companies trying to raise venture capital continue to do so with a national wind in their faces, according to the third-quarter venture capital data.
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.
Shift from information scarcity to abundance will transform health care
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
BioCrossroads drops dreams for hospital innovation
In this age of austerity, there’s almost no chance of Indianapolis hospitals creating a Cleveland Clinic-like hub of innovation.