What is Needed to Unravel a Gordian Knot is a Bold Stroke—Access and Coordination

Today, Andy Wallace joins us with some concise advice on how to make our health care system work far better.He comes with a special perspective; a highly regarded physician specialist, a former medical center executive (former CEO of the Duke University Hospital), a former Dean of the medical school responsible for the Dartmouth Atlas and Vice President for Health Affairs at the Dartmouth Medical

Medicare Advantage HMO Stocks Down Big This Week

Matthew Holt, publisher of the Health Care Blog, and I have been in a state of incredulity over Wall Street’s head in the sand view of the Medicare Advantage business for more than a year. See his post today, "I Don't Really Understand Wall Street, Part 98."Why was it that in the wake of a Democratic take-over of Congress in 2006 and Obama’s victory last November that HMO stocks heavily invested

Mr. President, Aren’t You Just Kicking the Can Down the Road?

Pieces of the health care portion of the Obama budget are leaking out.Based upon published reports, the Obama “down payment on health care reform” will include:$634 billion to help pay for health care reform over the next ten years. $318 billion of that—about half—will come from tax increases that include reducing the mortgage and charity deduction for high income Americans.Charging wealthier

"Obama Budget Would Creat $634 Billion Health Care Fund"

Here is what Ceci Connolly is reporting at the Washington Post:President intends to release a budget tomorrow that creates a 10-year, $634 billion "reserve fund" to partially pay for a vast expansion of the U.S. health system, an overhaul that many experts project will cost as much as $1 trillion over the next decade.Obama would pay for the expansion by trimming tax breaks for the wealthy and

For the Obama Administration Health Care Reform Will Require Really Tough Cost Containment—Coming and Going

The President has made a powerful argument—America cannot get its economic house under control without comprehensive health care reform. The cost of existing entitlements—public and private—and any new ones are just too big a ball and chain on our short and long-term economic health.The President has also argued that there could be no better time to fix this mess than now—when it is so critical

Raising the Price Before You Put It On Sale—The Obama Budget and His Health Plan

The Obama budget team has made it clear they are going into the next federal budget process playing it straight on many fronts that the prior administration had fudged on.The cost of the wars, the cost of adjusting the alternative minimum tax each year to keep the middle class from falling into it, the cost of disaster relief, and the cost of avoiding the otherwise automatic cuts to Medicare

SavingPrimaryCare.org Doing Good Work

A comment to a recent post caught my attention.There is a new group of primary care practitioners doing some good work that deserves some attention.From their website:SavingPrimaryCare.org is an off-shoot of the Ideal Medical Practices Project that has been running since 2006. This grant funded project supports solo and small practices across the US as they struggled to provide