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Health Reform: Reinventing the Wheel, Health Affairs Blog, October 12th, 2006, and Comment

Excerpt: The American health care systems perform impressively, producing what they are designed to deliver: cost inflation, inefficiency, and inequity. [Alan Maynard writes on Porter and Teisberg's reinvention of the health care system wheel.]  MORE >>

Health Blog: American Express Cancels Health Savings Account Cards

Excerpt: AmericanExpress, one of several financial institutions to develop an HSA product, introduced 'HealthPay Plus,' a debit card linked to HSAs that customers could use to pay for health care. Insurance giants WellPoint and Cigna had signed onto the program, according to American Medical News. But that wasn't enough to save the plan, which American Express will discontinue by the end of the year, citing high costs and low uptake among consumers.  MORE >>

Some Recommended Blogs About Health Law

The target page repeats criteria for evaluating the quality of blogs and provides a list of blawgs that provide useful information relating to health plan law.

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Health Plan Law Blog Adds Due Diligence Page

Excerpt: Due diligence checklists and articles are collected on the new Due Diligence Page. The page currently contains [a checklist] on selecting services providers, the DOL Fact Sheet on Selecting Service Providers, an article by Scott MacEwen on choosing a health plan consultant, a checklist of ten warning signs, and several links to sites with further resources.

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Health Plan Law Blog's ERISA TOOLKIT Page, Updated April 4, 2007

"ERISA TOOLKIT page is now updated with standard of review authorities and some additional practice tips. Tutorial section likewise updated with standard of review catalog of cases."

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Health Blog: Obama Aims to Help Patients Wipe Away Medical Debts

Excerpt: Barack Obama wants to make it easier for patients facing bankruptcy because of medical bills to eliminate those debts. A bullet point within his economic agenda says: 'Obama and Biden will create an exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses. This exemption will create a process that forgives the debt and lets the individuals get back on their feet.'  MORE >>

Health Blog - Big Employers Cover Contraceptives But Not Weight-Loss Meds

Excerpt: Some 77% of large employers provide drug coverage for contraceptives without limits on quantity or cost, but the number falls to 33% when it comes to coverage of emergency contraceptives, according to a survey out from Mercer, one of the big human-resource consulting shops.  MORE >>

Health Blog: Genetic Crystal Balls Arrive on Internet

Excerpt: Tests that assess broad panels of genetic markers to predict a person's risk of illness and death are becoming as simple as sending a sample of saliva to a lab and logging on via the Web for the results.  MORE >>

Wal-Mart Could Transform Health Care -- But Does It Want To?

"Back in 2007, Princeton University's Uwe Reinhardt suggested to NPR that Wal-Mart could be 'taking aim at the entire health care system' by expanding its new discount drug program.... And in subsequent years, Wal-Mart did grow its health care footprint, from launching retail clinics based within its stores to advocating for national health reform. Considering its history -- as recently as 2005, Wal-Mart had little involvement in the health care market and was being pilloried for skimping on its own employees' benefits -- it's been a significant turnaround for the firm, and has positioned Wal-Mart as one of the leading disruptive innovators in health care."  MORE >>

A Health Care Shibboleth: Why Is U.S. Health Care So Expensive?

"'We spend far more on health care than other peer countries yet have worse outcomes. Why is U.S. health care so expensive?' ... [This statement] occurs often, including by knowledgeable people and health-related institutions. However, it's a fallacy because it confuses health care with population health."

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Health Insurance Exchanges May Transform Health Care and Lower Costs -- But Only If We Get It Right

"Comparisons between health care and retail abound, and while we say it is ideal for the consumer experience to be the same in both industries, in fact they are much different.... [W]hat if the customer expected the same 'no questions asked' return policy ...? Or a money back guarantee? In health care, only recently has the federal government taken steps to impose financial penalties in instances of poor care (which is the health care system's equivalent of a 'return policy' from providers)."

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Hard Landing Ahead for China's Health Care Reforms

"China is in the midst of a comprehensive $178.3 billion health care reform that is arguably the most ambitious among a series of stalled, largely counterproductive post-1978 efforts to improve access and reduce inequalities between rural and urban areas within China's regionalized health care system. Unless the health care reforms are accompanied by a reform of fiscal policies, however, the absence of good governance brought on by financial constraints and perverse cadre payment incentives at the sub-national level is likely to undermine efforts to create a robust primary care infrastructure, and will consequently result in reform failure."  MORE >>

Top 100 Employment Law Blogs

Excerpt: [This year's list only includes] blogs written by lawyers, legal professionals, or from a legal perspective. Non-lawyer consultants account for less than 10 of the blogs on this year's list and each of those write consistently on legal issues.  MORE >>

Few Web Blogs Track Issues Related to Older Americans and Retirement; BenefitsLink Is Top Site Tho

Excerpt: Yes, there are plenty of worthwhile Web sites and plenty of list-serves that provide news, insight, commentary and information about retirement. But if you search the Web for blogs about retirement you'll find mostly flotsam and jetsam. So we asked a bevy of experts to provide us with their favorite blogs that address issues of concern to those in or near retirement. What did we find? Well, it's not good. Many don't have a list of bookmarked retirement-related blogs.  MORE >>

The Affordable Care Act: Speaking to Women's Unique Health Needs

"Women have often been charged more than men for the exact same health coverage. We have paid higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs. We also tend to make less than men and have a harder time paying for health care costs. As a result, women have not always had access to the health care they needed or the freedom to make the best health care choices for themselves and their families. But that's all changing. The new health care law already requires most health plans and insurance policies to cover recommended preventive services at no additional cost."  MORE >>

An Affordable Health Care System Would Look Nothing Like Obamacare

"[T]here are more opportunities to reduce health care spending by carefully managing the sickest 5 percent instead of wasting our efforts on the 80 percent who are relatively healthy.... To sufficiently slow medical spending, policymakers must allow plan designs that create price sensitivity among patients long after they have met their deductibles. To reduce health spending from the supply side, policymakers must allow insurers to promote competition among providers. In addition, plans and providers must be rewarded when they implement cost-saving programs that provide high-quality care at a lower cost."

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Intelligent Redesign of Health Care

"The health care industry has survived economically by cross-subsidizing margin shortfalls in one activity with the revenues generated from others. But the very existence of these cross-subsidies is symptomatic of deep flaws in the health care reimbursement system. As we move forward we need to be mindful of two principles that must be at the heart of any fundamental health care reform: 'no margin, no mission' and 'if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.'"  MORE >>

Administration Announces One-Stop-Shop on the Health Care Law for Businesses Big and Small

"Business.USA.gov/healthcare [is] a one-stop-shop where employers of all sizes can go for information on the [ACA]. The new site includes a web-based tool that allows employers to get tailored information on how the health law may affect them based on their business' size, location, and plans for offering health benefits to their workers next year. From tax credits for small businesses to help make coverage affordable, to measures to help slow the growth of health care costs, there are a variety of ways that the Affordable Care Act can help businesses expand health care coverage and compete."  MORE >>

As ACA Implementation Continues, Consumer Health Care Cost Growth Has Slowed

"Prices for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) on health care goods and services rose just 1.1 percent over the twelve months ending in May 2013, the slowest rate of increase in nearly 50 years. The slowdown in PCE health care inflation has been widespread, with important contributions from two large components: hospital and nursing home services (which comprise 42 percent of total health care expenditures) and outpatient services (which comprise 34 percent of total health care expenditures)."  MORE >>

What Is the Best Role for Government in Health Care?

"We frequently hear that health care is special.... But that specialness does not prima facie warrant regulation. To the contrary, because of the specialness of health care it is extra important that politicians and special interests not be allowed to muck things up. As it turns out, almost all the special regulation in health care has left us worse off than if it had never been legislated in the first place."

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