What I’m Reading: Becker's Hospital Review

I am putting the bad stuff all in one email so all this water will clear the slate for a new beginning in 2016.

 

Happy New Year.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/philadelphia-hospital-to-close-up-to-675-workers-may-be-laid-off.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/cms-to-expand-rac-program-to-medicare-advantage-6-things-to-know.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/hospital-cfos-top-concerns-for-2016.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/hospitals-face-payment-cuts-at-outpatient-sites-under-budget-deal-10-things-to-know.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/new-york-hospital-to-close-this-week.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/plan-to-close-ohio-hospital-gets-go-ahead-after-11-months-of-debate.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/dallas-hospital-closes-after-failing-to-make-payroll.html

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/a-state-by-state-breakdown-of-57-rural-hospital-closures.html

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/31-mississippi-hospitals-at-risk-of-closing.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/10-hospital-bankruptcies-so-far-in-2015-september15.html

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/9-hospital-closures-so-far-in-2015.html

 

 

 

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

 

The Experts Were Wrong About the Best Places for Better and Cheaper Health Care

 

http://nyti.ms/223u0ec

 

What I'm Reading: The New York Times

 

Facilities for older adults are overwhelmed and unprepared for increasing numbers of very heavy residents.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/health/rising-obesity-rates-put-strain-on-nursing-homes.html

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

For many consumers, the sticker shock is coming not on the front end, when they purchase Affordable Care Act plans, but when they get sick and are hit by sky-high deductibles.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/us/politics/many-say-high-deductibles-make-their-health-law-insurance-all-but-useless.html

 

 

 

 

What I’m Reading: The Kansas City Star

 

Anyone else angered by the continued "ruse" of characterizing the working poor in this country as the "refusing to work" poor?

 

Gov. Sam Brownback’s missive on Medicaid expansion was wrong, cruel and divisive

 

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

 

If this is how much trouble I have navigating a simple refilling of my medication, I don’t know how the rest of America does it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/upshot/trapped-in-the-system-a-sick-doctors-story.html

 

 

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

 

Disney was constantly reinventing his company, a practice that drove his more business-minded brother crazy but ultimately helped his studio thrive.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/business/media/walt-disney-a-visionary-who-was-crazy-like-a-mouse.html

 

 

What I’m Reading: Becker's Hospital Review

 

The economic impact of a rural community hospital closure is bigger than the sum of the statistical parts. Towns die. People die. Family owned farms and businesses disintegrate. Families disintegrate. Call it the trickle down effect.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/30-rural-hospitals-in-2-states-at-risk-of-closing.html

 

 

 

 

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

 

Australia and Switzerland have found ways to avoid ridiculously high prices while still protecting profits and incentives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/opinion/the-solution-to-drug-prices.html

 

 

What I’m Reading: Becker's Hospital Review

You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln

 

Perhaps our politicians will be forced to catch up to our reality. We can follow the money. Why can't they?

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/drug-costs-are-bigger-concern-for-republican-voters-than-aca-repeal-poll-finds.html

 

 

What I’m Reading: Becker's Hospital Review

 

What is wrong with this picture? Hospitals are filing bankruptcy, laying off employees and struggling to keep up with new regulations and reduced reimbursement and the insurance industry and pharmaceutical industry are making record profits.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/payer-issues/how-the-big-5-insurers-fared-in-q2.html

 

 

What I’m Reading: USA Today

 

 
Seven million fewer uninsured, study says.

http://usat.ly/1To5iDu

 

 

What I’m Reading: USA Today

Medicare shows 'jaw-dropping' decline in deaths.

 

And yet politicians continue to push more and more patients into private commercial versions of Medicare (and Medicaid) because the "private sector will be more efficient and reduce costs" despite the fact that costs average 12% more in Medicare "Advantage" plans and provides get paid on average 3% less (and wait on average twice as long for payment).

http://usat.ly/1HYHD4j

What I'm Reading: The New York Times

 

Pharmaceutical cost transparency bills have been introduced in at least six states in the last year, aiming to make drug makers justify their prices.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/business/drug-companies-pushed-from-far-and-wide-to-explain-high-prices.html

 

A sharp increase in reported cases of the disease among people who often cannot afford treatment has prompted officials to create programs to try to stop its spread.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/us/kentucky-struggles-to-contain-hepatitis-c-among-young-drug-users.html

 

 

 

What I'm Reading: The New York Times

 

The programs have helped millions of elderly, disabled and poor people, and have extended life expectancy in America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/opinion/medicare-and-medicaid-at-50.html

 

 

 

What I'm Reading: USA Today

 

Forty-five years ago I believed humanity was on the rocky but inevitable path of progressive enlightenment, "then they killed Martin, Bobby and elected tricky Dick twice..."

 

Pilots can become so lost and confused in a fog that, believing they are climbing, they actually accelerate their descent into a fiery conflict with the reality principal.

"Time is the fire in which we all burn."

Measles kills first U.S. patient in 12 years

http://usat.ly/1LXqYPd

 

 

 

What I’m Reading: Vox

The best analysis of the SCOTUS ruling on the ACA I have read:

Dylan Matthews at Vox thinks you need to read only one sentence from the chief justice, near the end. "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." It's that simple, writes Matthews: The point of ObamaCare "is to make health insurance markets work better and cover more people. To change the law so as to make them work worse, Roberts concluded, is to betray its clear intent."

 

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8845433/obamacare-king-v-burwell

I was interviewed by U.S. News & World Report yesterday asking my opinion of the ruling. I said, as an attorney, I would have been shocked if SCOTUS had ruled otherwise. It is a longstanding principle of judicial construction of legislation. Judges do not interpret words in the law as though they are a poem that can be freely deconstructed divorced from context. Judges are supposed to honor evidence of legislative intent in construing the meaning of ambiguous or conflicting language. SCOTUS did just that in this ruling. 

 

 

 

What I'm Reading: The New York Times

There is a virus afflicting perception so pervasive that we no longer recognize healthy, unaffected perception--it is the red versus blue virus. I have written about it previously. There were so many more productive ways to look at the data but this writer chose a red/blue lens. Our lives are 99% biological and cultural and 1% political; yet, we let our politics define and divide us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/talking-red-state-blues.html

 

 

 

 

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

The Obama administration has spent billions on getting doctors and hospitals to computerize patient records, but not everyone is playing along.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/us/electronic-medical-record-sharing-is-hurt-by-business-rivalries.html

What I’m Reading: Huffington Post

 

It's Not Just You -- Those Health Insurance Deductibles Are Getting Scary

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/20/health-insurance-deductibles_n_7337406.html

 

 

What I’m Reading: Vox

 

The debate over prescription painkillers, explained.

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8611703/the-debate-over-prescription-painkillers-explained

 

 

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

The diversification of modern health care has made it increasingly difficult for patients to be exactly where they should be when things go wrong.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/the-importance-of-getting-sick-in-the-right-place

 

What I'm Reading: The New York Times

 

Health officials will require insurers to update doctor directories and hope to help patients estimate out-of-pocket costs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/us/politics/health-care-law-consumer-complaints-to-get-addressed-by-white-house.html

 

What I’m Reading: Yahoo News Digest

Newly discovered deep sea microbes missing link in evolution.

http://yahoonewsdigest-us.tumblr.com/118388741499

What I’m Reading: The New York Times

 

This story fits in a long-running rant about the profits being generated by the drug companies and the relative hands off approach taken by politicians compared to the attention and the cost-cutting forced on hospitals and physicians.

Spending on pharmaceuticals is more than $400 billion a year in the U.S. In 2012, the top 11 drug companies earned about $85 billion in net profits. In order to protect those profits, “Big Pharma” spent nearly $2.7 billion on lobbying over the last 15 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/opinion/runaway-drug-prices.html?smpro