The Health Care Blog

POLICY: Health Care Problem? Check the New York Times Psyche

Hi, if you’ve wandered in from the Typepad blog of the day site, welcome! Today the NYT lets its rational lefty business reporter Anna Bernasek make a rational if obvious and basic case for single payer health care, even though...

POLICY: Peak Oil and Healthcare by Dan Bednarz, Ph.D

Dan Bednarz from Energy & Healthcare Consultants in Pittsburgh, PA is pretty concerned that you health care types don’t seem to be concerned about Peak Oil. What you say, you’ve never heard of Peak Oil? Better read this then! America’s...

BLOGS: Why blogging matters, even if it's only a little

I wrestle everyday with whether writing this or any blog makes any sense from a business or personal perspective. I cringe when friends and colleagues tell me they’re starting a blog, because I know how hard it is to keep...

TECH: Health2.0--this time it's different?

Dmitriy is worried that Health 2.0 is turning into a bubble. His piece Health Social Networking & Web 2.0 Bubble is a response to his rather prominent featuring in Laura Landros’ WSJ column. He’s concerned that it’s yet another bubble...

BLOGS: that #1 health care blogger can't be kept quiet

Amy Tenderich becomes ever more famous: TypePad Featured Blogs: Diabetes Mine. But keep your eye on that site for Sunday (hint!)

HEALTH PLANS: Wellpoint not out of the California woods yet

This Wellpoint policy retroactive cancellation story is not exactly going away -- Doctors seek to sue Blue Cross

TECH: Laura Landro picks up on Health2.0

Now I know that Laura Landro reads (rather than just reccomends) this blog. Today in her The Informed Patient column in the WSJ she discusses the burgeoning patient to patient discussion movement, which is a big part of Health2.0. On...

TECH/CONSUMERS: Revolution Health & MedBillManager

OK for those of you desperate to take a look at Revolution Health's "invite only" site, here is an officially blessed invitation to go sign-up (and of course to look at what $500m buys you!). Meanwhile, at the other end...

BLOGS: Coming out of the woodwork

Those of you bored with the same old health care blogs might be interested to know that there are some more out there. Veteran physician commentator Dick Reece's medinnovationblog is starting with a long series of posts about “innovations” in...

QUALITY/POLICY: Gerald Ford--the poster child for what's wrong with health care

Gerald Ford died last night aged 93. By any standards he had a great life. He was a moderate Republican in the House for many years, and then a stop-gap President after Nixon, famous mostly for pardoning Nixon who hadn’t...

POLICY: Ezra Klein world takeover on track

Ezra Klein is famous today--he has (I think) his second fifth or sixth op-ed in the LA Times, and this one is about universal healthcare and whay that debate is coming back. My only problem with the debate coming back...

INTERNATIONAL/POLICY: Canadian health care must be better!

If I was David Gratzer or John Graham's alter egos I'd be using these two stories to good effect. The first one one proves that Canadians are getting healthier and living longer than before they had a universal single payer...

OFF-TOPIC: Your bizarre Chrsitmas story

I know it can’t have been funny at the time, but this is my favorite Christmas story: Parade driver takes float on wild ride See you after you’ve had your fill—have a happy holiday.

PODCAST/QUALITY/TECH: An hour with Brent James

This was a total pleasure. Yesterday I got to spend an hour talking with Dr. Brent James, one of the leaders in the patient safety movement, instituting process change in health care, and the man responsible in large part for...

BLOGS: Bob Laszewski joins the cult

Bob Laszewski, a real inside the beltway health policy/politics heavyweight, has started his own blog (or as I told him has joined the cult). His blog is called Health Policy and Marketplace Review I hope the de-programming wont be too...

TECH/CONSUMERS: Deciphering a revolution?

Fard gets a sneak peak at Revolution Health’s site over at HealthCare Vox.

HEALTH PLANS/TECH: Looks like the Deal's over--or is it?

So it looks like from Justen Deal’s website that he’s essentially going to be fired in absentia by Kaiser. My assumption is that he knew this was going to happen all along, and was essentially preparing the way for some...

TECH/POLICY/PHYSICIANS:American medical care, or Larry Weed on Speed

(This one is long on links and short on explanation….sorry, but it’s all old ground here on THCB). Larry Weed was at IHI last week using the same line that he was using in 1998 and was probably using for...

POLICY: Health insurance 101

Head over to Managed Care Matters for Joe Paduda’s just excellent health care 101 (or should it be 001) rendition of why universal coverage and community rating require each other, and are both essential for health care reform to work....

BLOGS: Dmitriy's round up on the HC Blogging Summit

All at Blogging Summit Coverage, Trusted.MD Launch, Partnership with Transmarx and Plans for 2007.

TECH: Interview with David Blauer, CEO of Click4Care

David Blauer is trying to raise the profile of Click4Care. He gave an interview to HISTalk a while back, and we tried to connect then. It didn't happen for a few technical and timing reasons, but thanks to the diligence...

TECH: More wingeing Brits complaining about IT

Those damn Brits are whining about their shiny new technology again As revealed in a joint investigation last week by Computer Weekly and Channel 4 News, after Newham Primary Care Trust in East London and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre at Oxford...

PHARMA/POLICY/QUALITY: Cost-effectiveness in drug approval

I’ve been hanging with the libertarian Canada-bashers from PRI! They and the California Health Institute (the Cal biotech and drug company industry group) invited me to a very, very nice dinner last night. I assume that they used the drug...

POLICY: Wyden's health care plan

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden’s health plan is announced with a flourish and a call with a gaggle of bloggers. Best quick explanation is by Ezra The bill is a replacement of employer-based health care with the purchase of individual insurance...

POLICY/POLITICS: The looting of the taxpayer's pocket, part 731

Just worth reading this report to figure out how politics gets done, and how the Federal treasury gets looted drip by drip….especially right before the budget bill is sent to the President by a lame duck Congress (and it’s not...

POLITICS: Students interrupt Iran president

Students interrupt Iran president The president's speech was interrupted several times by students, ADWAR reported. Ahmadinejad responded by accusing the protesting students of having no shame and being on the payroll of the United States, according to ADWAR. But he...

HEALTH PLANS: Embarrased non-profit insurers still trying to hide the money

A long time ago (1993) in a universe far, far away pharma companies were somewhat concerned about public perceptions of their profits. Bob Leitman (long time at Harris, now at Greenfield) told me how, on a visit to a pharma...

BLOGS: Health Wonk Review #22

Health Wonk Review #22 up at the still strangley titled MSSPNexus blog (although she did tell me what it meant, but I forgot!). Nice job Rita, especially as my submission was way late.

HEALTH PLANS/TECH: PHRs--Can this woman ever tell the truth?

Time for the Karen Ignagni lie of the day. It comes in a session during which AHIP and the Blues talk about their sponsorship of a common model for PHRs (or at least for payer-based PHRs). It’s hard to know...

BLOGS/TECH: Dmitriy is famous--as are the rest of the bloggers

My sources tell me that the bloggers had fun in DC. Hopefully Dmitriy remembers to publish about Trusted.MD himself, rather than just let the press report about it

HEALTH PLANS/POLICY: Kaiser Permanente's plan to cover all Californians

The plan is interesting in that it seems to basically contradict the AHIP plan that Halvorson was touting last week. That one called for subsidies for low income workers to buy into private health plans. This one calls for a...

OFF-TOPIC: Which side of the great divide is more intelligent and civilized?

Apparently Gywnny's dissing her heritage But the question remains: was Gwyneth Paltrow on to something when she noted (or didn’t) that “the British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans,” and that “people here don’t talk about work...

TECH/PHYSICIANS/INDUSTRY: Communists in press stirring up trouble

So a disgruntled reporter is stirring up trouble by daring to question the way medical advances happen in this great nation. Apparently this Joel Rutchick character is suggesting that when respected surgeon Dr. Isador Lieberman and his organization the Cleveland...

TECH/PHYSICIANS:Vimo--building business by doing good (or vice versa)

Vimo is donating $1 for every doctor rating posted to the Vimo site during the month of December.

INTERNATIONAL: This is why we have trial lawyers

Man changes sex, parents sue hospital A couple whose only son underwent a sex change operation has sued a hospital for compensation and to have the surgery reversed because their “family line” was broken, a Chinese newspaper reported. The Yancheng...

THCB: Not today

Dealing with the recent computer crash has made me grumpy, and limited time for writing today. There'll be something somewhat cynical up in the morning.

BLOGS/TECH: And if you didn't understand Web2.0 before..

...you definitely will after you watch this!

PHYSICIANS: Barry Bonds and the AMA's still got management where they want them

The irony is quite staggering. On the same day that Barry Bonds gets the San Francisco Giants to bid against themselves--appalling the local baseball columnists--and give him $16m for one season in his tarnished chase of Hank Aaron, the Congress...

THCB: Err...comptuer failure

Not much here today. Yesterday my computer started telling me that it had problems with some files in the registry, and after running the reccomended chkdsk utility (which took 2 hours), at the subsequent restart it kept on crashing and...

PHARMA: Maybe the Dems are serious about drug pricing

It’s hard to see how Medicare Part D as constructed can easily be changed for the government to go after prescription pricing, no matter how much Pete Stark et al may want to. But there are other drugs that Medicare...

TECH: Brief musings on the PHR

Some brief musings on the PHR…given that I gave a talk on it for HIMSS N. Cal yesterday — Email is unreliable! Not a comment on the PHR but I sent the organizer my talk in both Powerpoint and PDF...

POLICY/POLITICS/HEALTH PLANS: Igleheart, Glasscock, pussycats

After a little prompting (i.e. 30 minutes after I posted a blog comment asking why it wasn’t up) Health Affairs has posted a letter I wrote two days ago in response to John Iglehart’s interview with Larry Glasscock in its...

POLICY/PODCASTS: Radio stardom

My erudite tones from the YourCall radio show on Monday--available streaming or in MP3 for download

PODCAST/TECH: Health Communities 2dot0

This is the transcript from the recent Health 2.0 Communities podcast--original post here. Matthew Holt: Welcome to another podcast here at the Health Care Blog. This is Matthew Holt, and with me today are two more leaders of what we're...

BLOGS: Fox News touts THCB?

Fox News? Likes a commie site like this? Believe it baby!

PHYSICIANS/POLICY: NY Times is surprised about its Ps and Qs in Prostate Cancer Therapy

So there are three treatments for prostate cancer. Medicare pays physicians a whole lot more for one (new snazzy non-invasive one that patients prefer too) than the other two. So they rush off to get the necessary equipment and staff-up...

PHARMA: That can't have been a fun management call, with UPDATE

Pfizer’s next big drug for heart disease (torcetrapib which was slated to replace Lipitor) has bombed in trials, causing sufficient deaths that the trials have been ended early and development has been stopped. This is obviously dreadful news for Pfizer,...

HEALTH PLANS/POLICY: John Igleheart is a pussy

In a Conversation With Larry C. Glasscock, the CEO of Wellpoint, John Igleheart has either been massively restricted by Glasscock’s PR handlers or has revealed himself to be a complete pussy. A little history: having been a senior exec at...

POLITICS/TECH: Fame and fortune and everythingthat goes with it

Today, (Monday) I’ll be on local NPR in San Francisco talking about what the Democrats may (or more likely, may not) do about health care in the new Congress. It’s on the Your Call show on 91.7 KALW at 10am...

POLICY/HEALTH PLANS: Yet more debatable data on CDHPs

HSC’s John Gabel (kind of a “neutral” in the debate) is out with a new study suggesting something that I think is true. The take up of CDHPs by workers offered them in a choice with other products (HMOs. PPOs)...