How will the Senate bill impact health insurance companies and their customers?Even better, how will it impact a not-for-profit health plan--one with a reputation for being a "good guy" that continually wins the country's top awards for member services and with historic profits of less than 1% of premium?...
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The Senate Bill--Wall Street Likes It and the House Will Have To
In morning trading HMO stocks are once again hitting 52-week highs with each of the major publicly traded plans up 3% to 6% from their Friday gains.Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are also doing pretty well.Liberals have been talking all weekend long about having to make the Senate bill better—and...
Coal in Your Christmas Stocking?
Is there anyone left, on either side of the political spectrum, who wants the Senate health care bill to pass?Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour had this to say about the Senate bill last week, “This health care plan is like mackerel in the moonlight. Longer that it's out there, the more...
Oh, Ease Up on Joe Already
The Democratic rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill today beating on Joe Lieberman is, in the least, disingenuous.The public option has not been tenable for months. It was not just Lieberman that has been against it in all forms--robust Medicare-like or the neutered variety in the House and Senate bills.All...
The Medicare Buy-In Is Dead--The Liberals Are Now the Swing Votes in Health Care
The Medicare buy-in idea is dead. After Democratic Congressman Weiner's candid comment, “Never mind the camel’s nose, we’ve got his head and neck in the tent," no senator from the likes of Arkansas or Indiana is going to vote for this.Add to that yesterday's critical Washington Post editorial and the...
Selling Insurance Across State Lines--Now the Dems Are Pushing the Idea--Why It Won't Work
A favorite Republican health care soundbite calls for making the health insurance system more efficient by letting health plans sell across state lines.Now Democrats are jumping on that idea. The latest public option idea would have the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) contract with national not-for-profit...
Liberal Demands Over Giving Up the Public Option Threaten Health Care Deals
I actually feel for Harry Reid this morning.He was on his way. He had mastered an incredibly fine balance in his health care bill.No it wasn’t real health care reform and it wasn’t going to bend any curves but the Dems long ago gave up on that looking for one big political “W” instead.The liberals...
The Latest Version of the Public Option—The Democrats Could Have Saved Us Lot of Time If This is What They Call a “Public Option”
If the latest version of the public option is something that will give its proponents reason to argue they still have a way to "make the health insurance market much more competitive," then a motor scooter is a Ferrari.The details are still fuzzy but the word is that senators are working toward a compromise...
2009 a Year of Surprises and Change for the EHR Technology Market
2009 a Year of Surprises and Change for the EHR Technology Marketby DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER"Oft expectation fails, and most oft thereWhere most it promises; and oft it hitsWhere hope is coldest, and despair most fits." All's Well That Ends Well (II, i, 145-147)2009 began with a...
Good For Orszag--Budget Director Discusses Cost Containment in Dem Bills
I was encouraged by remarks White House Budget chief Peter Orszag made in Washington yesterday.There has been substantial debate in recent days about whether the pending House and Senate bills have the kind of robust cost containment we need to really "bend" any health care cost "curves."Readers of...
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