The Health Care Blog

POLICY/PHYSICIANS: Mystery Pollster The AMA Spring Break Survey

For those of you curious about the AMA’s recent “Girls Gone Wild” survey, some interesting stuff from Mystery Pollster. Here’s Part 1 and here’s Part 2. If you look deep in the comments about Part 2 you’ll see my cynical...

POLICY/FRIDAY FUNNY: Controlling Health Care Costs From the Bottom Up, By Michael L. Millenson

THCB regulars know that we love Michael Millenson, even if he is a swiftboater! Like some of these very vigorous THCB commenters, he’s been thinking a little about transparency! News item: The Bush administration says it will publish the prices...

POLICY: Nation's Mental Healthcare System Gets "D" Grade,by Dr. Deborah Serani

There’s been some fuss about the recent grading of America’s mental health care “system”. Dr. Deborah Serani who’s usually to be found over on her Psychological Perspectives blog, explains what the new NAMI grading is all about, and no we...

BLOGS: Health Wonk Review --Call for submissions

Health Business Blog’s David Williams has a call for submissions out for the next Health Wonk Review. The more advanced among you will hopefully use this very clever submission database, set-up by ubber-geek (and that is a compliment) Shahid Shah

HEALTH PLANS: More on buying individual health insurance, update on the Blue Cross cancellations

This is turning into pretty serious doodoo for Wellpoint. Yesterday, WellPoint's Blue Cross of California and its subsidiary BC Life & Health were sued for canceling policies retroactively. Of course the only policies they've been canceling were ones that they...

POLICY/HEALTH PLAN: Yin and Yang - The wonderful world of health insurers

To find my mots de raison today, you’ll have to click over to Spot-on where I’ve been intruiged by the little legal challenges that Wellpoint’s now facing and spent some time thinking about Yin and Yang - The wonderful world...

TECH: JSK on PDAs, me on Epocrates, and eRx

The ever wonderful Jane Sarasohn Kahn has written a pretty definitive piece on physician PDA use at iHealthbeat. (Yes, Jane is a co-author and long time friend, so I’m biased, but she is wonderful). It’s called PDAs Reach the Tipping...

THCB: Crass commericalism

So THCB is making a little progress. Over to the right, that squirrel with a tough nut to crack is an ad from the Healthy Oregon Plan – a group supporting ballot measure 111 promoting universal health care in Oregon....

POLICY/QUALITY: Sliding Down the Back Side of the Health Care Quality Curve: Who's at Greatest Risk?, by Brian Smedley

The recent RAND study that suggested that there were few or no differences in the quality of treament of minorities when they got into the US health system has not been taken lying down by those who believe that there...

POLICY/PHARMA: Putting out fires...

And if you hadn’t had enough of Part D at THCB today, I’m also up with a brief article about it at TPMCafe’s Drug Bill Debacle site called Putting out fires

POLICY/PHARMA: Yup some do benefit from Part D. This is not news! And politically it won't matter. with UPDATE

After all the yarling and snapping of the introduction of Part D, there was a curious article in the New York Times on Sunday suggesting that "For Some Who Solve Puzzle, Medicare Drug Plan Pays Off." Of course this is...

PHARMA/POLICY: Medicare Part D, yet more to and fro, and some on the uninsured too

A long transcript from a conference full of health care journalists (hat-tip Kasier FF) in which Leslie Norwalk from CMS proves that she’s very brave, or maybe even foolhardy. And apparently Medicare Part D was all Al Gore’s idea….. Bob...

POLICY/HEALTH PLANS: Shalala and the janitors update

Looks like the power of Health Care Renewal (and THCB) is proved again. (Ok, OK kissing…) But after featuring the story about Donna Shalala and the Univ of Miami janitors who didn’t have health insurance, apparently the university has caved....

TECH: Brailer takes weekend off in SF

The S.F. Chron has an article about local boy made good David Brailer and his attempt to persuade American health care to inter-operate, or whatever it’s supposed to be doing in the absence of a mandate or any money! Brailer...

OFF-TOPIC: The ultimate theocratic fascist cashes in

And in my end of week rant….. Arianna Huffington nails John Ashcroft, now lobbyist. There’s no question that bible-thumping fascist John Ashcroft was my least favorite Republican of recent years. His Justice department converted the war on drugs into the...

HOSPITALS: The transparency debate

Here's my editorial from today's issue of Fiercehealthcare: We've been hearing a great deal about price transparency in health care. California has a new law mandating that hospitals release their chargemaster billing data. The Administration's advisors are demanding that hospitals...

BLOGS: Health Wonk Review up at Kate's

Damn. Health Wonk Review is up at Healthy Policy and I didn’t even notice till late PST. But young punkette Kate Steadman did a great job. By the way, the punkette is still in Kansas City but is intending to...

OFF-TOPIC: And in a sign that Texas really is a police state

Texas sting nabs people for being drunk in bars More than 2,200 people have been arrested in Texas bars in the six months since the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced a crackdown on public intoxication, primarily targeting bars. The arrests...

POLICY: The New Republic gets it not-quite-right

Despite the risk of upsetting Jonathan Cohn — who I think is great — I take a little dig at his mother ship over at Spot-on. My piece is called Politics, religion, The New Republic, and health care, and it’s...

PHYSICIANS: Docs believing in God, not as many as you'd think

I'm the ultimate American outcast in that I'm an atheist (or as we're known now secular humanist), who thinks that (as one old friend put it) "all religions from the Bhagwan Rajneesh to the Unitarians are only interested in putting...

POLICY: Pat Salber says we should change policy on food availability

Pretty scary stuff from Pat Salber over at Peertrainer: The Doctor Weighs in on The epidemic of childhood obesity. It is estimated that boys born in the US in the year 2000 have a 30% chance of developing Type 2...

INTERNATIONAL: Exactly what care does a pregnant woman need? with UPDATE

Lynn Payer wrote a great book a while back called Medicine and Culture. I remember that Americans were put on medication if their blood pressure was too high, and Germans were put on medication if their blood pressure was too...

POLICY: I think Borowitz has got it

From the always good but sometimes brilliant The Borowitz Report. This one finally explains the point of Medicare Part D. U.S. CONFUSES INSURGENTS WITH PRESCRIPTION DRUG PLAN Military Launches ‘Operation Incomprehensible Program’ Across Iraq In an effort to confuse Iraqi...

PHARMA: Still decent growth on a pretty big number

Pharma companies (or their investors) may be all depressed wishing that the good old days of fat pipelines and long patent protection windows were still here. But now and again it’s worth considering how big Big Pharma actually is. And,...

PHARMA: Brandweek on Pfizer, Pharmacia, HGH and Rost

It’s all going down on Brandweek’s site — a much longer look at what THCB touched on a few weeks back. You’ll have to login to get the full story, though. (The link is now direct). Suffice it to say...

BLOGS: Grand Rounds is up; HRW submissions info here too

Grand Rounds is up (although I forgot to submit) at HealthyConcerns but it’s plenty long enough! Meanwhile, Kate Steadman at Healthy Policy is hosting Health Wonk Review on Thursday Get your submissions into her NOW. Here’s how: Please have your...

POLICY/INDUSTRY: Posting prices is all we need--yeah, right. Paul Ginsburg on transparency

Paul Ginsburg from HSC doesn't quite have Uwe's ability to damn but stay "just this side ofthe line". On the other hand he has a solid base in very sensible research. When they start talking about price transparency someone in...

HOPSITALS: Is there a built in profit in DRGs?

I got this random question and I didn’t know the answer, so I’m doing an “ask the audience” hoping that some geek smart on Medicare is reading. Is there a pre-defined profit margin built into DRG payments when they are...

PLANS/TECH/POLICY: WSJ finds a slight flaw in options awards

A while back there was a boring argument interesting exchange in THCB on whether the options awards to a certain health plan CEO were really part of compensation or costs to the company (and hence to its shareholders and customers)....

POLICY: I ♥ Uwe Rheindhardt on "Skin in the game"

As I’ve said for a while I seriously believe that the way to health reform is to make all a) members of Congress and the Administration b) all op-ed writers for major newspapers and c) all Academics (especially Mark Pauly)...

TECH/QUALITY: Are laproscopes really dangerous?

There's a new crisis every day, and Friday's was a terrible new affliction as reported in the New York Times caused by poorly used laproscopes which burn holes and cause bacterial infections because don't have a special new feature that...

POLICY: Kinsley--Good grief! (with UPDATE)

Supposed voice of liberal moderation Michael Kinsely is out with a Washington Post op-ed called Before We Go 'Single Payer' which is just staggering. I thought Arnold Kling was bad in his misunderstandings, but I apologize to the libertarians on...

POLICY/QUALITY: The intellectual backdrop has been created for P4P

Here’s my FierceHealthcare editorial Last week a study from Wennberg's Dartmouth group showed that there were vast variations in the amount of "physician resources" used to produce similar care outcomes, in that case in intensive care settings. This week a...

POLICY/TECH: Gingrich Discusses Health Care

Newt is at it again. This is one speech for which I assume he didn’t get his $40K going rate as it was to the Florida House. As usual he said tech would solve all our problems— he should know...

TECH: Neurotech Industry Conference 2006

Zack Lynch has put together a conference called The Neurotech Industry Conference 2006. It looks pretty interesting for those of you who care about the various medical and pharmaceutical approaches to the development of new treatments and diagnostics for the...

POLICY: China and American health care

I was reading an article about about political infighting in the Chinese Communist Party -- a decidedly non-THCB topic -- called A Sharp Debate Erupts in China Over Ideologies. (Traditionally the CCP has been like Republicans, all on message with...

BLOGS/TECH: Two new blogs worth checking out

And if the health care blogging world wasn’t specialized enough for you, here are two new ones taking deep dives into very specific subjects. One on the Ethics of Vaccines from the Bioethics guys at UPenn, and the other on...

POLICY: Up at Spot-on about rationing

I thought I’d spare THCB readers an article about yet more idiocy from libertarian so-called economists bitching on about Canada. As usual they have forgotten that economics is the study of how to allocate scare resources and so all economics...

THCB: Any budding reviewers out there?

Dr. Robert McKersie has asked me to review his book In the Foothills of Medicine. Here’s what his web site says about it. In the Foothills of Medicine shares one doctor’s intriguing true story from the front lines of medicine....

TECH: Can Medsphere prove the open source model in health care?

At HIMSS I had a quick chat with Scott Shreeve, the Chief Medical Officer at Medsphere. Medsphere's product OpenVista, as you all know, is built on the VA Vista product -- which is the main "open source" EMR code out...

POLICY: Up at TPMCafe about my favorite trade group

I’m up at TMPCafe, with the topic being the oh-so-scientific Part D survey from my favorite trade group. Fellow Ignagni fans should rush over there.

POLICY/INDUSTRY: HSC on 10 years of change

Whe I was first figuring out the private sector in health care about 10-12 years ago while Hillary was trying and failing to get reform done, I heard a gazillion people, usually in the strategy or policy dividions of big...

TECH: Of geeks and grandiose misunderstandings

Writing in his blog from PC Forum, Esther Dyson’s technology conference that Dave Winer says is apparently is back “in” these days, here are some parts of what Michael Miller had to say. Esther Dyson talking about how the health...

THCB: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

OK. I have two requests for people in slightly different parts of health care IT. Both are based on the west coast. One is for a senior level marketing Director at a large technology company to build a health care...

HEALTH PLANS: Hey, wasn't UHC supposed be nice now?

Having been the first health plan to say that it was going to stop hassling physicians back in 1999, I thought United was supposed to be behaving itself and promoting love, flowers and puppy-dogs all around with its providers. (Well...

PHYSICIANS/HOPSITALS/INDUSTRY: Customer service: are new market entrants showing the way?

Interesting piece from a marketing consultant called Chris Bevolo from boutique firm GeigerBevolo Inc., in Minneapolis. The report looks at new entrants into health care services and responses to improve the patient experience at Mayo and Park Nicollet. The new...

PHARMA/POLICY: In this game of monopoly drugs the market is working, oh yes

So the new maker old off-patent drug that is needed badly but only by a few people, and for some reason isn’t in the Part D or most other private formularies “notices” that it has a monopoly. So what does...

PHARMA/QUALITY: New York Times discovers compliance

Says here, compliance with drug regimens is a big problem. (Adopt Harry Shearer voice with hard “en” sound in “knew”)” Who knew? Who knew? And McKesson, plus a boat load of other DM, PBM and pharma-related companies (like Pfizer Health...

PHARMA/PHYSICIANS: Reimbursements Sway Oncologists' Drug Choices, by Greg Pawelski

Greg Pawelski is not exactly surprised about the latest revelations about oncologists and their use of chemotherapy. A joint Michigan/Harvard study confirms that medical oncologists choose cancer chemotherapy based on how much money the chemotherapy earns the medical oncologist. Just...

BLOGS: Health Wonk Review

Welcome to Health Wonk Review. Joe expected some crack about English soccer fans, but I’m all depressed since the Catalans ejected my boys with barely a whimper from the European Champions League we were supposed to win on Tuesday. So...