The following post originally appeared on the TIME Moneyland blog.
Nobody would be surprised to hear that spending more on healthcare will result in new jobs. But a new program announced by the Obama administration last week seeks to create new healthcare jobs and at the same time reduce healthcare costs. Is such a trick possible?
Health Beat readers may be interested in listening to the speech that Dartmouth’s Elliott Fisher delivered at the Lundberg Institute’s inaugural event at the Commonwealth Club of California on October 25. Fisher does an excellent job of summing up where health care reform stands today, reformers’ goals, and the challenges they face. The Question & Answer session may be of particular interest. Fisher handled it beautifully. Click here: http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/elliott-s-fisher-achieving-sustainable-health-care-system-102511
In October, I was asked to speak at a Mayday Foundation meeting about blogging and using social media to spread a message. The Mayday Foundation is a global organization dedicated to pain relief.
At the meeting I met Bob Twillman, a 2011-2012 Mayday Fellow, who also is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Academy of Pain Management. After the meeting he wrote a blog post for TheHill.com’s Congress Blog focusing on what he describes as “the much-ballyhooed issuance of three papers (including one Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) from CDC last week on the issue of overdoses and deaths involving prescription opiods. ”
Twillman’s essay reminds us that limiting access to pain medications is not the way to limit overuse. As regular HealthBeat readers know, I am concerned about overtreatment. But most patients who overdose get their pain medications from someone else’s medicine cabinet—not from a prescription that a doctor wrote for them. Physicians should be able to prescribe these drugs for the many patients who truly need them.
After writing about “Essential Health Benefits” for HealthBeat, I wrote a shorter post for Time.com (the online version of Time magazine), updating what I had written here.
This month, the public will have a chance to weigh in how they think “essential” should be defined. See below for a link to places, times, and dates where “listening sessions” will be held in cities across the nation, as well as information on how to register. Time is of the essence. Insurers are calling for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to spell out the essential benefits that must be included in all policies sold to individuals and small employers by the end of December.
This Time.com post appeared Tuesday. Below, the first half of the post (You can read the full piece on Time.com’s “Moneyland”)
At the end of the excerpt below, I comment on how both tax credits and the state-based Purchasing Exchanges will make insurance more affordable for small employers and individuals who are buying their own policies.
Earlier this week, as the Supreme Court continued to mull over which of the four legal challenges to the health reform law they will choose to tackle, I found out that, in fact, there could be a “silver lining” to the repeal of the individual mandate—the requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance.
In a post on Politco, Jennifer Haberkorn writes that some “Democrats and supporters of the law” believe that if “the least popular part of the law goes away, they think what’s left could become stronger and more popular with the public.”
If the demise of CLASS has any greater meaning, perhaps it will serve as a wake-up call for Americans that we need an enduring solution to the long-term care problem. The CLASS legislation, part of the Affordable Care Act, would have created a voluntary, long-term care insurance program that could eventually provide a modest benefit to its enrollees—up to $75 per day to help pay for assistance in carrying out daily activities, a health aide, medical supplies, or to help defray the yearly costs of living in a nursing home.
Below, Amy Berman describes her recent journey through our health care system as “eye-opening.” In part 1 of this post, she explained why she decided on palliative treatment for breast cancer, rejecting aggressive procedures such as mastectomy and chemo.
When Amy Berman was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer a year ago, she made a courageous choice. Instead of fleeing death, she decided to pursue life. In the essay below, she describes why she rejected chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, choosing palliative care instead.
Should the Preventive Services Task Force Depend on Congress for Funding?
Should Doctors Who Share Decision-Making Be Protected Against Lawsuits?
If Doctors Don’t Tell Patients What They Are Doing, Is This Malpractice?
Should Physicians Who Want Tort Reform Give Something in Return?
Should Nurses with PhD’s be Called “Doctor”?
These are some of the questions I thought about after reading the latest edition of Health Wonk Review, hosted by Health Affairs’ Chris Fleming. In this two-part post, I focus on just five of the best health care posts of the past two weeks. Inevitably, I have omitted some outstanding posts. I urge you to read the full round-up here.
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Over the past decade, state laws restricting abortion have mostly focused on trying to reduce demand for the service. Some states do this simply by making abortion financially out of reach: The average cost of a first-trimester surgical abortion is $451, and in all but fifteen states Medicaid will not pay for low-income women to have the procedure.