Health Industry Price Inflation At Historical Low
Health costs are slowed to a near standstill. What caused it? What does it mean? Is the pause durable or transient? Read: Health Cost Inflation at Historic Low.
Hospitals’ Twenty First Century Time Warp
The US hospital of 2013 is remarkably similar in technology and services to the US hospital of 1998. Have hospitals entered a 21st Century Time Warp?
Practice Redesign Isn’t Going To Erase The Primary Care Shortage
The largest problem the health system faces in the next decade is the retirement of the baby boom primary care physicians, just in time for boomers enrolling in Medicare and millions of newly covered by health reform. Younger physicians are not entering primary care because it pays so poorly. Can we design new primary care models to alleviate the impending shortage, or is something more fundamental required?
Where Is Health Spending Headed? Some Reactions To The CMS Report
For the third year in a row, health spending continues at pre-Medicare rates of cost growth. Is this new and welcome trend sustainable? Where is health spending headed?
Accidental Tourist: Visiting the Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok
In December,2012, Jeff Goldsmith journeyed to Thailand, and visited the storied Bumrungrad Hospital. He was really impressed with what he saw. Read about why in The Accidental Tourist.
Health Care: An Alternate Economic Universe
While the US economy continues to labor to create new jobs, the health system has added over a million jobs since the beginning of the recession, despite falling physician office visits, hospitalizations, etc. What gives? Is health care an alternate economic universe?
Barking Up The Wrong Tree: Affordability, Not Cost Growth, Is The Policy Challenge
US health cost growth has reached a fifty year low. What does this mean for health policy? The key problem: nearly half the country cannot afford to use the health system without massive public subsidy. Why affordability, not cost growth, is the major health policy challenge.
MedPAC’s SGR Solution: Bad Medicine For A Chronic Problem
In a failed Congressional experiment with “global spending caps” on physician services, US physicians ended up owing Congress and the Medicare program over $300 billion. The Congressional advisory panel MedPac issues a flawed proposal for cleaning up the so-called Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) mess.
The Fallen Souffle Economy
Continued economic troubles may be bringing healthcare’s three decade long run to an end. Can the health system adjust to scarcity?
Marooned in the Horse Latitudes
The US economy languishes while the health system continues adding jobs. Are the two phenomena related? Is America marooned in the horse latitudes?