U.S. Healthcare – Moving Forward

Last week I gave a presentation to the leaders of some women’s health advocacy organizations about where the U.S. healthcare system is heading, i.e., where we go from the current situation with the A.C.A. We had a great discussion, and the organizer of the event emailed me afterward to say, “Amazing is all I can say. You are the first person who could speak to [the] ACA in which people listened and engaged.”

Some of the key points I made included:

  • Focus on the future. Don’t relive the past.
  • Move forward from today’s strengths and weaknesses. The slide below describes health insurance coverage for 2015 showing dramatic increases in coverage in individual insurance and Medicaid, and a decrease in the uninsured. 

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Health, Healthcare, and Government Spending (and a Culture of Health)

Why governments care about health spending and healthcare, how they are connected to overall government spending and priorities, and why addressing social determinants of health is so important for making lasting improvements, were the subjects I covered in a presentation at George Mason’s graduate policy school in September. My goal was to provide the soon-to-be policy analysts and advisers with a framework for understanding those issues so they will be able to provide useful recommendations to their future decision making bosses. (See the slide below for the topics covered in the presentation.) Links to videos of the talk are below, along with short descriptions – I think that Part 6 is particularly good.…

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Challenges Estimating Future U.S. Healthcare Spending

The challenges of estimating future U.S. healthcare spending (and why projections are so often so inaccurate) is the focus of the third video segment from my guest lecture at George Mason University about Health and Budget Policy – see below. (The first two are in previous blog posts and are on the HealthPolCom YouTube Channel.)

The final two video segments on the topics of Medicaid, and the Changing U.S. Healthcare System will be posted next week. The five subjects covered in the video segments from the guest lecture are:

  1. U.S. Spending on Health and Healthcare
  2. Medicare and U.S. Healthcare Spending
  3. Challenges for Estimating Future Healthcare Spending
  4. Medicaid: Federal and State Fiscal Issues
  5. Changing U.S.

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Medicare and U.S. Healthcare Spending

The second video from my guest lecture at George Mason University about Medicare and U.S. Healthcare Spending in now available – see below. (The first was an overview of Health Spending in the United States, and is in the previous blog and also on the HealthPolCom YouTube Channel.)

The other video segments from my guest lecture that I’ll be posting over the next week or so will be on the following subjects:

  1. Challenges for Estimating Future Healthcare Spending
  2. Medicaid: Federal and State Fiscal Issues
  3. Changing U.S. Healthcare System: New Payment and Delivery Models

Enjoy. pass along to your colleagues and friends.…

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U.S. Spending on Health and Healthcare & Update

Sorry to have been so delinquent in publishing new posts.  For most of 2015 I was busy working with the National Governors Association and the Institute of Medicine organizing State Health Leadership Retreats for the Governors of 4 states. Those retreats were modeled on a pilot retreat we conducted in late 2013, and in late 2015 we did a culminating meeting for officials from all the states. Right after that I joined Foley Hoag as their Senior Health and Life Sciences Advisor.

All that has kept me rather busy, but in February I again guest lectured at George Mason about Health Reform and Fiscal Challenges (a.k.a…

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Specialty Drugs: Getting What We Asked For

The cost of so-called specialty drugs has become a major health policy issue largely because of spending projections for new medicines for chronic hepatitis C infection and cancers.  Having worked on issues related to the development, approval, availability, use, and cost of medical treatments for more than 25 years, I’ve noted with concern and bemusement how cost and value issues are being discussed and presented in public debates and policy circles.

The Intense Debate About New Biopharmaceuticals Was Predictable

The introduction of significant new specialty medicines is reasonably predictable because information about biomedical research and the developmental status of new drugs and biologics is publically available from the FDA and company press releases.…

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Health Reform Book

In 2005 I started writing a book about health reform.  As I was working on it, the structure and framework of the U.S. healthcare system kept shifting. I am now returning to work on this book, with the new working title, “Pivoting the U.S. Healthcare System: A Guide to Making Health Reform Work.” Below is a brief overview of the background about the book, which can also be found on my main website.

Comments, suggestions, and general inquiries about this project are welcome.

Overview – “Pivoting the U.S. Healthcare System: A Guide to Making Health Reform Work”

In my very first class in medical school, one of the first things the Professor said was, “Half of what we’re going to teach you is wrong.…

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Medicare Trust Fund Solvency Projections (History Of)

The 2014 Medicare Trustees’ Report was released yesterday.  Amidst all the reporting was how the revised projections for the Medicare Trust Fund (for Part A) increased by 3 years from last year’s report. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a great summary of Medicare financing and projections for future spending, but below is another chart that shows the actual number of years of projected solvency for the Part A Trust Fund in the years since 1970 – in the years when the Trustees’ Report included such projections:

Two things to note about this chart: The dramatic leap up in 2010 mostly reflects a combination of the healthcare spending slowdown in the Great Recession and the legislative changes in the ACA that pared back Medicare payments.…

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Medicaid and State Level Health Transformations

I recently guest lectured on Medicaid and state level health transformation at a George Mason University public policy class.

To start, I led the class through a discussion of how states differ from each other around 14-plus factors related to healthcare delivery, financing, policy, and politics. In this discussion we talked about the importance of policy makers appreciating those factors as they consider how to improve health, and the different routes states have taken for Medicaid improvements and expansion. (See picture of white board below.)

We had a great discussion, and I emphasized the importance of both multi-stakeholder alignment, and health information systems that can provide data for transparency and accountability – which together are fundamental to health improvement and reform efforts.…

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Sovaldi® and Curing Hep C – Myths and Other Facts

The introduction of new oral medicines that can cure chronic hepatitis C infections (including Sovaldi®) have led to some intense discussions permeated with misleading information about the pricing of new medicines, how such medicines are “game changers,” and the implications for budget-crunched payers.  Below I summarize some key points about those issues.

1.  Myth #1: How Medicines are Priced

One of the perpetuating myths about biopharmaceuticals is that medicines are priced to recoup research and development costs.1 It’s a myth. As I’ve written about elsewhere prescription medicine prices are set like everything else in a regulated free market: Companies set prices to maximize revenues and profits based upon the market opportunities and the value the new medicine provide compared to the consequences of the disease and other treatment options – including no treatment at all. …

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Health Reform and Transformation in San Diego & California

I recently sat down with Kevin Hirsch, MD, President of Scripps Coastal Medical Group* to talk about health reform and transformation in the San Diego region. (See video below.)

Dr. Hirsch’s insights are interesting and timely because California often precedes the rest of the country in adopting new approaches to healthcare delivery and financing problems.  An example of this may be California’s 2006 Hospital Fair Pricing Act, which addressed very high hospital bills for the uninsured. This month’s Health Affairs includes an article that analyzes the impact of this law, and the authors’ findings contrast markedly with Steven Brill’s Time magazine article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us.”

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Health Reform and Low-Income People in Washington DC

I recently sat down with George Jones, Bread for the City’s CEO, to talk about health reform and the challenges low-income people in Washington DC have accessing healthcare. The video of our discussion is below.  A couple of notes: 1. George’s title changed from Executive Director to CEO about a year ago.  I’ve known George for more than 15 years, so my bad when I introduce him as the Executive Director. 2. Please excuse my verbal stumbles and be impressed by George’s answers – we filmed this in one take in his small, hot office at Bread for the City.  I’m confident there will be improvement in future videos – and of course, your feedback is always welcome!…

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