The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
An anti-tax group goes after Democratic health reform proposals, alleging they would lead to rationing and crushing government deficits. But the campaign includes some dubious comparisons with the British health system, and the group’s recommended solutions are open to question.
President Barack Obama spoke about health insurance, a pressed for a need to overhaul the health care system at town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday.
The White House released these prepared remarks in advance of the President’s weekly Saturday address.
At President Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in Belgrade, Montana, he was asked a number of questions about his push for health reform, including two pointed ones on paying for a health overhaul and on small business and insurance coverage.
The White House released a transcript of President Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in Belgrade, Montana. He begins with prepared remarks and then answers questions from the audience.
We live in a time when seemingly no subject is taboo. Yet, there remains one subject Americans seem unable to talk about in an honest and rational way: the inevitable decline of old age.
Section 1233 of the health overhaul bill approved by three House committees has been the subject of great debate. We present the language as written in the bill itself.
Physicians, while disputing the charges of plans for euthanasia, say the debate on what is in the House health bill on end-of-life care could help focus attention on an underfunded service.
All our actions have consequences.
It seems to be what’s missing often from debate, especially around such emotionally-charged arguments as the health care reform debate, but actuaries deal in repercussions, moving behind the scenes, analyzing risk and the future and what health care reform will actually mean for America 5, 10 or 20 years from now.
Elevating the commission, known as MedPAC, isn’t about greasing the path for unpopular payment reductions, an obvious way to save money. It’s about rethinking payment altogether. Even as MedPAC advised upping payments, commissioners quietly insisted for years that Congress should scrap its abstruse, fragmented rules for paying providers.
Dr. Carolyn Clancy, the director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, warns, “Doctors and patients are working together in a relative evidence-free zone.” She hopes to change that as interest and support veer towards comparative effectiveness research.
As much as $36 billion in federal stimulus money will help physicians and hospitals go digital by 2015. But, workers need training, smaller offices may struggle to come up with down payments, and once the electronic records are up and running many say their biggest value is pointing out room for improvement. And, improvement efforts cost time and money, too.
In its current state, diagnostic imaging can be seen as “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”. Congress must separate healthy and unhealthy growth
When 14 year old Prince Jackson was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he was caught in a gray zone: public and private insurance doesn’t usually cover the palliative care he desperately needed. But his mother got help from a new program that provides services for seriously ill or dying children.
Some analysts say false claims that the health bill encourages seniors to end their lives early were purposely spread to undermine the bill. In fact, the bill would pay health care providers to discuss a patient’s health care wishes. This story comes from our partner
President Barack Obama continued his press for public support of health reform initiatives Tuesday at what The White House called a “Health Insurance Reform Town Hall” meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
In negotiating health care legislation, lawmakers might want to look back to 1986. That was the year that a Democratic House and a Republican Senate worked together to pass a tax simplification bill. A full-court press by lobbyists is usually enough to stop a bill – but it wasn’t in 1986. This story comes from our partner .
The U.S. airwaves are full of political ads these days slamming the Canadian health care system. The ads say that in Canada, care is delayed or denied and some patients can wait a year for vital surgeries. Is the Canadian system really that bad?
