The Health Care Blog

So will the public option hurt hospitals? Not in the Ozarks

By Matthew Holt I've had this sitting in my inbox a while, but I thought that with the Senate bill out it was time to have a bit of weekend fun with it. The topic is the fear that a...
November 20, 2009 in Health Plans, Hospitals, Matthew Holt, Policy/Politics, Public Option | Permalink | Comments (7)

"The possible" vs "what we want," resumed

By Matthew Holt Not so long ago (actually less than 2 weeks), there was quite the spat on THCB between the Four Horseman (Klepper, Kibbe, Lazewski & Enthoven) and Maggie Mahar. Essentially it came down to this question: Is there...
November 17, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Medicare, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (4)

On the road--ACHE Social Media, NCI, Healthcamp NYC, Blogging networking LA

By Matthew Holt My time off for good behavior is at an end and today I get back on a plane for four fun conferences and a party. Wednesday I’m keynoting the ACHE Social Media in Healthcare meeting in San...
November 3, 2009 in Blogs, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Val Jones, MD | Permalink | Comments (0)

Time to put aside the intellectual disputes for now

By Matthew Holt It’s always fun to see my friends beating each other up in public....and if you read down in the comments on the post published yesterday you’ll see a significant dispute between Maggie Mahar and the Klepper/Kibbe/Lazsweski/Enthoven team...
October 31, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Maggie Mahar, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics, Public Option, Robert Laszewski | Permalink | Comments (79)

What's got lost in the public option kerfuffle

By Matthew Holt Not so long ago, July this year in fact, PhRMA boss and former Dem Blue Dog & Republican Billy Tauzin told the Aspen Health Forum that a straw poll of Democrats at dinner with him in DC...
October 27, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (10)

Regina Holliday: Fred's life & death at 73 cents a page

By Matthew Holt If you ever wonder why the efforts to make it easier for patients and families to get information and be treated as equals in their care by the medical care system matter.... If you need convincing that...
October 24, 2009 in e-patients, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (6)

Why AHIP needs the public option

By Matthew Holt It’s been a fun week. After years of THCB explaining that neither could AHIP do genuine research nor could its venerable President open her mouth without lying, the rest of the world has caught on. I won’t...
October 16, 2009 in Charlie Baker, Health Plans, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (37)

Two east coast conferences worth a look

By Matthew Holt Two conferences I won’t be at (because I’ve been on enough aeroplanes this year already and have to do a bunch more traveling in November) are later this month. One is GelHealth in NYC which is the...
October 15, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (3)

The ugly, the bad, the very good and the great at the Health 2.0 Conference

By Matthew Holt So the Fall Health 2.0 2009 conference in San Francisco at the Concourse Exhibition Center is over. The bunting is down, the cocktails are drunk, and everyone can get back to the sanctity of the WiFi enabled...
October 10, 2009 in Health 2.0, Matthew Holt | Permalink | Comments (6)

Olberman, hysterical hypocrisy expose

By Matthew Holt A really fun piece from Keith Olbermann as he shows how the entire Gang of Six and more voted for fully socialized flood insurance and yet seem to have a problem with an independent government run public...
October 4, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (11)

JSK (national treasure) on data liquidity, and how it fits into Health 2.0

By Matthew Holt Given that she taught me most of what I know about health IT I don’t know why I ever need reminding about how great Jane Sarasohn-Kahn is at keeping her finger on the pulse of health care,...
October 3, 2009 in Health 2.0, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, Matthew Holt, Policy, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yet another reason to abolish the Senate

By Matthew Holt Ezra Klein, feeling a little soft, interviews Kent Conrad—he of the co-op feed stores for health care idea. My take on the interview is that I seriously believe Conrad's entire knowledge of health care comes from his...
September 26, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (11)

Aneesh Chopra, talks Health 2.0

By Matthew Holt Aneesh Chopra is the Obama Administration's Chief Technology Officer. He'll be giving keynote speech at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, Oct 6-7.
September 23, 2009 in Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (1)

A little ain't enough, or is it?

By Matthew Holt I've been so buried in the run up to Health 2.0 that I haven’t had a chance to add to the deluge of electrons about the bills in Congress, Obama’s speech, the several hundred amendments to Baucus’...
September 20, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (4)

Interview: TR Reid on healthcare reform around the world

By Matthew Holt TR Reid is a former foreign correspondent with the Washington Post. He spent two years (partly funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation) looking at health care systems across the world and has been featured heavily in many...
September 8, 2009 in International, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (8)

Expect to hear a whole lot about this...

By Matthew Holt Seniors care about death panels (apparently) but they usually really care about drug prices and costs. Part of the political rationale for the Republicans passing Medicare drug coverage in 2003 was to deny the Democrats the ability...
August 30, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (10)

What can $100 get you?

By Matthew Holt I don’t use THCB much to point out what good we all can do—I keep that for my year-end letter—but my favorite charity (Saigon’s Childrens Charity) is at its financial year end and just sent me the...
August 28, 2009 in Matthew Holt | Permalink | Comments (4)

We'll be back here in 2016, unless

By Matthew Holt I've been meaning for a while to put up a common sense post that points out that if we don't do reform now, we’ll end up with cost at close to $30K per family as opposed to...
August 28, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (36)

Sunday mumbles

By Matthew Holt If you can’t quite remember why we’re doing this health reform stuff, here’s a very amusing defense of the current health care system by Jonathan Adler at Newsweek (hat-tip to Jon Cohn). Meanwhile by any measure July...
August 2, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy/Politics, THCB | Permalink | Comments (18)

Two rules by which to judge a health reform bill

By Matthew Holt Right now we have sausage-making going on in DC and lots of uninformed opinions and outright lies being strewn across the front pages and on cable from newly declared experts. I sat in an airport last night...
July 31, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics, Reform | Permalink | Comments (49)

Sermo, malpractice, and Howard Dean

By Matthew Holt Sermo’s Daniel Palestrant got on TV with Howard Dean. It was an amusing (and short) little debate which you can find here. The best moment was at the start when Dean claimed that Sermo was just a...
July 29, 2009 in AMA, Health 2.0, Malpractice, Matthew Holt, Physicians, Sermo | Permalink | Comments (14)

Live from Aspen: the moderates' view on Obama health reform

By Matthew Holt Paul Krugman’s article today excoriates the Blue Dogs and a former dog Billy Tauzin in particular. He also (as I did a week or so back) wonders where the Dogs were when the Bush tax cuts were...
July 27, 2009 in Congress, Democratic Party, Matthew Holt, Medicaid, Policy, Policy/Politics, Public Option | Permalink | Comments (11)

Costs v Coverage: Krugman gets it--Brooks is almost quite close

By Matthew Holt So Paul Krugman, the NY Times Nobel Prize winning lefty columnist, says this (and echoes what I’ve been saying for a while) So where in America is there serious consideration of moving away from fee-for-service to a...
July 24, 2009 in Costs, Matthew Holt, New York Times, Policy, Policy/Politics, Reform | Permalink | Comments (10)

Health "reform": Lest we forget...

By Matthew Holt There’s been a lot of hand-wringing and b.s. discussed about the comparatively minor health reform that’s snaking its way through Congress. And when I say comparatively minor I mean it. Mostly because there’s lots this legislation doesn’t...
July 21, 2009 in Marketplace, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics, Reform | Permalink | Comments (16)

Sunday reading-Jon Cohn on French & Dutch health care

By Matthew Holt Jon Cohn has a long article in the Boston Globe about how the French and Dutch get health care about right at half the American cost with none of that unpleasant Canadian or Britishness that FoxNews loves...
July 5, 2009 in International, Matthew Holt, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (20)

Biggest and best month ever on THCB

By Matthew Holt By the time most of you read this, I’ll be heading to England to tell those Limeys how to do healthcare right the American way….or something like that, and then off to China. I’ll be back in...
July 2, 2009 in Matthew Holt, THCB | Permalink | Comments (6)

Rantology: Cannon on Freedom or Power?

By Matthew Holt Ah-ha. Michael Cannon has now replied to me and it basically comes down in his mind to me being a crypto-fascist Stalinist wanting to break the will of the American people mediated through its representatives, the health...
June 30, 2009 in Health Plans, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (25)

A little more on insurers, and reform means more of the same

By Matthew Holt In the comments on my piece on Michael Cannon (which Michael has not commented on sadly, as I was hoping for a nice fight! Michael has replied here and I'll reply back on Monday), everyone’s favorite insurance...
June 27, 2009 in Health Plans, Matthew Holt, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (31)

A Declaration of Health Data Rights

By Matthew Holt THCB & Health 2.0 are happy to be a small part of a very important declaration, made today by a mix of patients, physicians, technologists and concerned citizens. It's a Declaration of Health Data Rights, and it's...
June 22, 2009 in Consumers, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (17)

Matthew went to Redmond, Pt 4: Nate McLemore

By Matthew Holt My final interview from my trip to Microsoft was with Nate McLemore, who is Director of Business Development for the Health Solutions Group and also involved in Microsoft’s policy & lobbying work. Nate talked about Microsoft’s role...
June 18, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

Rant: THCB transforms the New York Times, makes offer!

By Matthew Holt Just a few years ago The New York Times was on its last legs, printing Judy Miller’s re-mouthing of Cheney’s lies, holding back the wiretapping story until after the 2004 election, and generally spouting a lot of...
June 17, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Journal of Participatory Medicine

By Matthew Holt ePatientDave and Giles Frydman have been working on the Society of Participatory Medicine for a while and Alan Greene MD will be the first President. Now there’s a editorial board for the Journal of Participatory Medicine. The...
June 17, 2009 in Annals of Journalism, Consumers, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (3)

Video: Matthew went to Redmond, Part 3: Mike Raymer, Amalga

Continuing my series of interviews from my trip to Microsoft the week before last (before their conference) I met with Michael Raymer. Mike is a long time health IT veteran who's been at Microsoft for about six months and is...
June 15, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

Op-Ed: How I've Missed the AMA....

By Matthew Holt Over at Dr Val’s Get Better Health site Evan Falchuk from Best Doctors is very grumpy about Steve Pearlstein’s column in the WaPo. Pearlstein rewrites Gawande’s rewrite of Shannon Brownlee’s Overtreated. Not much surprise here—everyone is doing...
June 13, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (17)

Interview with IPC The Hospitalist Company's Adam Singer

By Matthew Holt I don't delve into the world of hospitals, physicians and health care operations as much as I should. So when I was asked to interview Adam Singer, the CEO of IPC The Hospitalist Company, the biggest company...
June 12, 2009 in Matthew Holt | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not sure that's how Uwe meant it!

By Matthew Holt The AP has a puff piece on the greatness of Karen Ignagni. Well greatness if greatness is defined as doing anything it takes to screw the nation on behalf of her organization’s members, all the while telling...
May 25, 2009 in Health Plans, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (6)

More on HITECH , Microsoft mea culpas, Google, et al

By Matthew Holt I draw your attention to a troika of articles, all of which show how things can be slightly misinterpreted. First, who knew that Blackford Middleton was either the most influential health policy wonk out there, or single-handedly...
May 19, 2009 in Google, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

Cats and dogs on film--Tullman, Leavitt, Bush

By Matthew Holt Anyone who’s been following along on THCB will realize that there’s a huge divide about whether the HITECH act should pay for and dictate a specified, certified type of EMR product use OR pay for data and...
April 13, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

A liberal is a conservative exposed to the NHS

By Matthew Holt The old adage is that a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged. So I was much amused by this letter from a Republican to the local paper (Salt Lake Tribune) in the most conservative state in...
April 12, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (30)

Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson on reform and life after IT

By Matthew Holt George Halvorson is the CEO of Kaiser Permanente, and the driving force behind both the HealthConnect EMR implementation and a national player in the health reform debate. I got to talk to him at HIMSS where he’d...
April 8, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Health Plans, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (14)

It's, err, gulp, HIMSS time

By Matthew Holt Yes, the annual cavalcade of boat-show sized booths and late night partying—interspersed with frequently mind-numbing presentations that most people skip— is on. In Chicago in a snowstorm! I touched down on Sunday midday and managed to compound...
April 6, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

From Health 2.0 meets Ix: A Breathtaking Display of Possibilities

By BRIAN KLEPPER (Boston) Jane Sarasohn-Kahn and I were quickly comparing notes this morning. Our impression is that, compared to past meetings, this one seems more characterized by doers than observers. This conference brings together a dizzying array of tools...
April 2, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Conferences, Health 2.0, Joshua Seidman, Matthew Holt, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Hawaii Health 2.0 Chapter meeting

By Matthew Holt Indu & Matthew traveled to Hawaii (tough gig but someone’s got to do it) to take part in the Hawaii Health 2.0 chapter on Online Care, held on Thursday March 26. The chapter meeting was rather more...
March 27, 2009 in Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

Karen Ignagni lie of the day, part 68

By Matthew Holt The big insurers now seem to be doing anything they can to prevent a Medicare-equivalent public plan being launched to beat them up. Yes AHIP has apparently decided to throw the schlockmeisters off the boat, and more...
March 25, 2009 in Health Plans, Matthew Holt, THCB | Permalink | Comments (47)

Don't think anything is certain on the reform front

By Matthew Holt And in more from the "is it really bad enough out there to guarantee health reform?" front... Pew Research is out with a poll showing that the numbers in favor of a major health care system reform...
March 20, 2009 in Election 08, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (5)

Tom Epstein, Blue Shield of California, on the hot seat

By Matthew Holt A couple of weeks ago the PR company for Blue Shield of California contacted me asking if I wanted their take on health reform. I somehow suspect that the PR flack concerned wasn't as familiar with the...
March 19, 2009 in Health Plans, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (5)

Jonathan Cohn on the internal politics of Obama's health care plan

By Matthew Holt Jonathan Cohn has started blogging almost daily on the politics of health care at The Treatment. And it's a treat to read. Jon is a member of the recently exposed vast left wing conspiracy (so am I,...
March 18, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (7)

Bill Maher explains why government-run health care is a good idea!

By Matthew Holt Maher’s being funny (at least he thinks he is!), but he’s tapping into a meme that I think that many in DC including any Democrats are missing. I was watching CNN on Sunday and Sanjay Gupta brought...
March 16, 2009 in Matthew Holt, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (41)

I shake my fist at Clay Shirky!

By Matthew Holt Last week (Tuesday to be precise) Chris Rauber, the health care journo at the SF Business Times calls me to talk about health care IT. But he ends with a question that’s not about Health care or...
March 15, 2009 in Matthew Holt, THCB | Permalink | Comments (9)

My forecast: a sad conclusion to the health care bubble...

Brian Klepper and David Kibbe have written a terrific piece on how and why health care is in a handbasket and wondering where it’s going. But as we ex-futurists know, there’s lots of luck required to make a good forecast....
March 12, 2009 in Health Plans, Matthew Holt, Pharma, Policy, Policy/Politics | Permalink | Comments (12)