HEALTHCARE COSTS
The Source’s Jaime King and Others on What’s Left For States After Gobeille
Anne Marie Helm, Managing Editor March 13, 2016
On March 1, the Supreme Court decided Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., holding that ERISA preempted a Vermont law’s APCD reporting requirements for self-funded employee health plans (see our case brief here). This case has enormous implications for price transparency and cost containment strategies, especially at the state level. To lay out the issues and offer predictions as to Gobeille’s consequences, Health Affairs Blog ran a four-part series on the case, including one by Source Executive Editor and favorite collaborator Erin C. Fuse Brown called The Consequences Of Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual For Health Care …
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Academic Articles & Reports Round-up: January 2016
Elizabeth Nicholson, Research Fellow February 1, 2016
As expected, a large number of articles and reports were published in January. Most heavily discussed was healthcare cost, which came up in many contexts, including: national spending slowdowns, comparatively among different countries’ healthcare systems, pharmaceutical drugs, healthcare services, the effect provider education has on cost, how cost intersects with quality, “cost-effectiveness,” and high-cost/high-need patient populations. Another hot topic was healthcare consolidation. One article discussed the general history and trajectory of healthcare consolidation (spoiler alert: it isn’t slowing down anytime soon) and the California Health Care Foundation published a mini-series …
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Academic Articles & Reports Round-Up: November 2015
Elizabeth Nicholson, Research Fellow December 2, 2015
We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, full of friends, family, and cheer! November yielded some interesting articles and perspectives on health care markets and consolidation, price transparency, payment reform, prescription drug pricing, more ACA litigation, and health care spending. Enjoy! HEALTH CARE MARKETS/CONSOLIDATION Multiple articles discussed the effects of health care markets and consolidation on various health care entities. Early in November, the Alliance for Health Reform published an article entitled Health Care Consolidation. The article uses numbers and statistics to paint a vivid picture of the increase in …
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Academic Articles & Reports Round-up: October 2015
Elizabeth Nicholson, Research Fellow November 2, 2015
We hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! October provided a high volume of articles focused on an array of topics related to healthcare price and competition, so bear with us! One JAMA article, in particular, provided an umbrella view of the October healthcare literature. The article, entitled Insurers Again at Odds With Hospitals and Physicians, provides a historical analysis of the tension between health insurers and physicians/hospitals/pharmaceutical companies from the perspective of Harvard Economics Professor David M. Cutler, PhD. Dr. Cutler argues that what’s at the heart of the United States’ …
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What Drives Scalable Innovation in Healthcare? Hint: It’s Not Cost Savings, Outcomes, or Technology
Guest Author October 1, 2015
By Guest Blogger: Amanda Goltz, MPA, Industry Consultant In the avalanche of media coverage, conference sessions, and social media posts around why the $2.7 trillion healthcare industry is one of the slowest to adopt widespread innovation, there’s plenty about the barriers to change, but not a lot of what truly drives the few widespread changes that actually have happened. We understand that the third party payer system distorts business models, the practice of medicine is an art as much as a science, fee for service rewards process, not outcomes, and that …
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Academic Articles & Reports Roundup: September 2015
Elizabeth Nicholson, Research Fellow October 1, 2015
With fall comes sweeping change—and the health care price and competition fields were no exception this year. September’s literature focused most heavily on: 1) health care and insurance competition|2) pharmaceutical drug pricing|and 3) Medicare/Medicare Advantage. Health care and insurance competition took center stage in September. Subcommittees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committees held multiple hearings on various competition topics. Numerous stakeholder representatives testified at each hearing—including, as you’ve probably already heard, The Source’s very own Executive Editor, Jaime King! Each of the witnesses’ Prepared Statements from …
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Academic Articles & Reports Round Up: July 2015
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor July 31, 2015
In July, insurance mergers were all the rage. Anthem-Cigna, Aetna-Humana, the Big 5 becoming the Big 3, you’ve heard all about it. The DOJ and House Judiciary Committee have plans to look into the impact of these potential mergers on health insurance markets, and The Source will be there to keep you posted. In the meantime, check out the following articles and reports that came out in July. If you can’t get enough of the health insurance merger discussion, we’ve got a few things to whet your appetite. Thomas “Tim” …
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May Articles & Reports Roundup
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor June 2, 2015
Greetings! For the academics among us, its time to wrap up your end of the year grading and see what you’ve been missing in the literature this month. Two themes came out of the literature in May. First, (no surprise to anyone) the American public continues to be frustrated with the lack of transparency and rationality in healthcare prices, but there are some signs of hope. Second, policymakers and academics have proposed numerous payment reforms, which despite their varying degrees of success, only get at a fraction of the problem. …
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April Articles & Reports Roundup
Jaime S. King, Executive Editor May 1, 2015
While April brought us little in the way of showers, it did offer a nice range of articles and reports that focus on competition in health care markets and payment reform initiatives, including accountable care organizations (ACOs). This issue of the Roundup will tackle payment reform initiatives first, then move on to competition, and wrap up with a handful of articles examining state initiatives and opportunities. Payment Reform Initiatives The April academic literature examined the ability of payment reform initiatives, including payment for performance, reference pricing, and provider risk sharing …
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How to fix our hospital pricing problem (and how not to)
Guest Author April 15, 2015
By Guest Blogger: Erin C. Fuse Brown, JD, MPH We are pleased to publish another excellent post by Professor Fuse Brown, originally published here by the Center for Law, Health & Society! The post: Last month, Slate columnist Reihan Salam wrote a provocative article about outrageous hospital prices that are driven, according to Salam, by greed, avarice, and market power. Salam gets a few things dead right, namely his diagnosis that we have a massive hospital pricing problem that is bleeding us dry and that the problem is largely caused by growing hospital market power. However, he misses the …
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