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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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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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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Health Spending: For What, To Whom, and Where It Is Heading

The data for 2011 US healthcare spending was reported in the January issue of Health Affairs.  Below are some graphs showing how spending was distributed across the different categories of healthcare services in the years 2000, 2007, and 2011, as well as who paid for the spending.  (My analyses and commentary follow these graphs. The source for all graphs is Health Affairs, 32, no. 1 (2013):87-99)

What Healthcare Spending Went For:


Where Healthcare Spending Funds Came From:
Three highlights from the Health Affairs article are:

  • The distribution of healthcare spending for various services and providers has been relatively constant despite significant growth in total and per capita spending.

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Jimmy Buffett Medicare and Healthcare

The title of Jimmy Buffett’s song “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is a good description of the fundamental changes occurring in the US healthcare system:  Within the Federal Government – and Medicare in particular – widespread “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” are evident in the implementation of the Affordable Care and HITECH Acts, and the overall leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services.  Healthcare leaders in private organizations – and state and local governments – are embracing these changes, which collectively are leading to better healthcare quality and lower costs…. Or at least slower increases in healthcare costs, a.k.a.…

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