TEDMED Great Challenges: Health Care Quality: What #39;s cost got to do with it?
Do patients get better quality care from more expensive hospitals? A study published last Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs examined 25000 insurance ...
By: TEDMED
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TEDMED Great Challenges: Health Care Quality: What's cost got to do with it? - Video
State health care exchange officials said they had thoroughly vetted Christa Ann McClure, the Connect for Health Colorado director they placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday after learning she had been indicted for stealing from her last employer.
McClure, 51, pleaded not guilty Feb. 6 in federal District Court in Montana to eight counts of theft and fraud from a nonprofit housing agency in Billings.
She was indicted Jan. 16 and notified her current Denver employer, the state-sponsored health exchange, on Monday, a few days after the story broke in Montana media, Connect for Health spokesman Ben Davis said in a telephone interview.
Connect for Health performed a criminal background check and checked references before hiring McClure in March, Davis said.
"She was completely clean," he said. Her position as executive director of Housing Montana of Billings, he said, made her well-qualified for her post as Connect for Health's director of partner engagement she was liaison with state and federal partners, such as Medicaid officials. The job pays $130,000 a year.
"Integrity and public trust are paramount to the mission of Connect for Health Colorado," Davis said in a statement released Wednesday. "We take extensive measures to protect consumer information and technology systems."
Connect for Health Colorado, a new health insurance marketplace, was established by a state law in 2011 and opened for business in October. Its official name is the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange.
In her job with the exchange, McClure doesn't have access to any of the exchange's finances, Davis said.
McClure, who has not been convicted of any charges, should have informed Connect for Health much earlier of the accusations she was facing, Davis said.
The charges against her are "very serious, and we are taking this very seriously," he said.
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Colorado health exchange officials say indicted director was vetted
WASHINGTON Most states are lagging when it comes to sign-ups under President Barack Obama's health care law, but an Associated Press analysis of numbers reported Wednesday finds a dozen high-achievers are ahead of the game.
Huge disparities are emerging in how well states are living up to federal enrollment targets. That will help determine whether the White House reaches its goal of having 7 million signed up by the end of March, six weeks away.
Connecticut is the nation's top performer, signing up more than twice the number of residents it had been projected to enroll by the end of January. Massachusetts, which pioneered the approach Obama took in his law, is at the bottom of the list having met 5 percent of its target.
Six Republican-led states Florida, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin are on pace or better. Residents are signing up despite strong political opposition to the health care law in some of those states.
Surprisingly, the worst performers include four jurisdictions where Obama's law has strong support: Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon and the District of Columbia.
The administration said Wednesday about 1 million people signed up for private insurance under the health law in January, extending a turnaround from early days when a dysfunctional website frustrated consumers.
January marked the first time since new health insurance markets opened last fall that a national monthly enrollment target was met.
All in all, from Oct. 1 through Feb. 1, nearly 3.3 million people have signed up.
"It's very, very encouraging news," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "We're seeing a healthy growth in enrollment."
Still, the goal of 7 million by the end of March seems like a stretch.
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State health care exchange officials said they had thoroughly vetted Christa Ann McClure, the Connect for Health Colorado director they placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday after learning she had been indicted for stealing from her last employer.
McClure, 51, pleaded not guilty Feb. 6 in federal District Court in Montana to eight counts of theft and fraud from a nonprofit housing agency in Billings.
She was indicted Jan. 16 and notified her current Denver employer, the state-sponsored health exchange, on Monday, a few days after the story broke in Montana media, Connect for Health spokesman Ben Davis said in a telephone interview.
Connect for Health performed a criminal background check and checked references before hiring McClure in March, Davis said.
"She was completely clean," he said. Her position as executive director of Housing Montana of Billings, he said, made her well-qualified for her post as Connect for Health's director of partner engagement she was liaison with state and federal partners, such as Medicaid officials. The job pays $130,000 a year.
"Integrity and public trust are paramount to the mission of Connect for Health Colorado," Davis said in a statement released Wednesday. "We take extensive measures to protect consumer information and technology systems."
Connect for Health Colorado, a new health insurance marketplace, was established by a state law in 2011 and opened for business in October. Its official name is the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange.
In her job with the exchange, McClure doesn't have access to any of the exchange's finances, Davis said.
McClure, who has not been convicted of any charges, should have informed Connect for Health much earlier of the accusations she was facing, Davis said.
The charges against her are "very serious, and we are taking this very seriously," he said.
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Colorado health exchange officials say indicted employee was vetted
Ontarios long-revered health-care system is a mess, with huge executive pay raises, growing use of lobbying firms paid with tax dollars and a mounting culture of fear that pervades all parts of the system.
But despite a volatile cocktail of bureaucratic waste and questionable use of tax dollars, Health Minister Deb Matthews has failed to address these issues that threaten the integrity and effectiveness of the health-care system.
Importantly, since Matthews was named health minister in 2009, Ontarios health-care system has displayed disturbing signs of decay, particularly in community care which Matthews boasts as one of her big successes.
Evidence of trouble is rampant.
First, executive salaries at Community Care Access Centres, which govern home care in Ontario, have skyrocketed while low-paid workers who actually deliver services to patients havent seen their incomes rise in a decade and in many cases have actually suffered significant drops.
Second, the 14 CCACs are now using tax dollars meant for patient care to pay for lobbying firms that advise the CCACs on how to sell their message to politicians at Queens Park.
Third, barely 40 to 50 cents of every tax dollar earmarked for home care actually reaches the health-care professionals who deliver services to patients. Stunningly, the rest goes to executive salaries, rent, administrative costs, care coordination and corporate profits.
Fourth, a reign of fear and intimidation imposed by CCAC bureaucrats has effectively shut up critics of the system, especially those employed by private companies that have contracts with CCACs to provide the workers who actually deliver services to patients.
Many of us in the community have been very frustrated for some time, the president of a private service provider wrote this week in an email. We are not able to speak out on any of these issues in fear of jeopardizing our contracts.
How, indeed, does Matthews justify huge CEO wage increases and wage inequalities? Why does she overlook a culture of fear thats so pervasive among those under her portfolio?
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Denver-based health care app developer Welltok announced Wednesday that it has raised $22.1 million in Series C funding, a round led by New Enterprise Associates with new participation from tech giant IBM.
It is IBM's first direct investment from the recently formed Watson Group. IBM created the group named after its supercomputer "to advance new cognitive computing capabilities," with plans to invest $100 million.
In November, IBM selected Welltok as one of three early-stage partners to develop Watson-powered apps. Under the partnership, IBM said Welltok would leverage Watson's supercomputing capabilities for its social health-management app, called CafWell Concierge.
The CafWell platform will use Watson's computing power to read millions of pages of data within seconds to deliver health-care-related reports tailored to individual needs. The app will also reward users for engaging in healthy behaviors. For example, as individuals take actions to lower their Body Mass Index, their health-care premiums would be reduced.
"Watson is one of IBM's most prized innovations, and by sharing it with organizations like Welltok, we aim to fuel a new ecosystem that accelerates creativity and entrepreneurial spirit," IBM Watson Group senior vice president Mike Rhodin said in a release.
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Denver's Welltok raises $22 million for Watson-powered health-care app
Affordable Care Act Ingrid #39;s Success Story
Seattle small businesswoman gets affordable health care for the first time in years. http://www.nohla.org/
By: Roberta Riley
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Kiss My App Contestant: The A Team
Ayush and Spandan are finishing their 4th year in the Computer Engineering program at the University of Toronto #39;s St. George campus. Their app was inspired b...
By: WilliamOslerTV
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AdvocateLive: Everything you need to know about heart health
Cardiologist, Dr. Peter J. Stacy of Advocate Medical Group answers questions about heart disease, prevention and treatment during this edition of AdvocateLiv...
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AdvocateLive: Everything you need to know about heart health - Video
WASHINGTON (AP) Big retail stores, hotels, restaurants and other companies with lots of low-wage and part-time workers are among the main beneficiaries of the Obama administration's latest tweak to health care rules.
Companies with 100 or more workers will be able to avoid the biggest of two potential employer penalties in the Affordable Care Act by offering coverage to 70 percent of their full-timers.
That target is considerably easier to hit than the administration's previous requirement of 95 percent, but the wiggle room is only good for next year.
"It will be very helpful to employers," said Bill O'Malley, a tax expert with McGladrey, a consulting firm focused on medium-size businesses. "This gives them a bit of a transition period to begin expanding coverage on a gradual basis. There would be some cost savings to employers who otherwise were nowhere near meeting the standard for 2015."
It means that big companies, not only medium-sized firms, can benefit from the new employer coverage rules that the Treasury Department announced Monday. Under those rules, companies with 50 to 99 workers were given an extra year, until 2016, to comply with the health care law's requirement to offer coverage.
"I think it's pretty significant because the vast majority of the workforce is in large firms," said Larry Levitt, a health insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "It affects a much bigger swath of the economy."
President Barack Obama's health care law requires companies with 50 or more employees working 30 or more hours a week to offer them suitable coverage or pay fines.
The so-called employer mandate was written into the law as a guardrail to discourage employers from shifting workers into taxpayer-subsidized coverage. Small businesses with fewer than 50 workers are exempt. And more than 90 percent of the larger firms already offer health care.
But even if it directly impacts a relatively small share of companies, the mandate still represents a major new government requirement on businesses. At a time when the economy remains weak, implementation has been fraught with political overtones. The requirement was originally supposed to take effect in 2014, but last summer the White House delayed it for a year. Then came this week's additional delay for medium-size companies.
Treasury officials say the lower coverage standard for bigger companies should help employers struggling with the health care law's definition of a full-time worker as someone who averages 30 hours a week. Many firms have traditionally set a 35-hour week as the threshold for offering health care benefits.
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Religion shouldnt dictate health care
Kathleen Parker, like many religious people, seems to believe that religious liberty means the freedom of those who are religious to impose their beliefs on everyone else with whom they interact, especially those people over whom they have some control, such as employees and also customers [Obama, practice what you preach, Opinion, Feb. 9].
This interpretation of religious liberty fails to acknowledge that religion should be private and every person should have the right to her or his own religious beliefs and practices. I believe that any state or country that imposes, legalizes or allows the imposition of any religious belief of one person onto another is taking away the religious liberty of the other person.
With that reasoning, when employers are allowed to not provide contraceptive health coverage because of their own religious beliefs, they are taking away their employees religious freedom. To borrow an observation by Jon Stewart, religious employers are already providing the means to obtain contraception it is called a paycheck. Why do so few people talk about this other side of religious liberty?
Margaret Garber, Seattle
Dont impose beliefs on others
Kathleen Parker seems to intentionally ignore that President Obama does practice what he preaches in regard to religious freedom. She just doesnt want to acknowledge what he is actually preaching.
By requiring that employers provide contraception as part of preventive insurance coverage, the president is relying on the First Amendment clause against the establishment of religion in his position that church-related groups or private employers cannot utilize the government as leverage to force their particular religious beliefs on their employees.
Would Parker be as sanguine if an Orthodox Jewish employer refused to hire any males who werent circumcised into the Covenant of Abraham? Or if a Muslim charity required all employees not to drink or eat pork? Or if a fundamentalist Christian hired only those attesting to a belief in creationism? An employers freedom of religion does not include curtailing that same freedom for their employees.
Philip L. Bereano, professor emeritus, University of Washington
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Religion shouldnt dictate health care; dont impose beliefs on others
The New Look of Primary Health Care in Viet Nam
The building and upgrading of 800 commune health centres mean doctors are able to help 8 million people, mostly in rural areas, have access to quality primar...
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Home Health Care Liberal, KS
This video for rent or sale. Call Gary at 830-931-4901 We are Internet marketing experts. We specialize in video marketing and getting your business found in...
By: Gary Pieratt
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Political bonuses paid from health care contractors?
While Maryland #39;s troubled health care exchange racks up cost overruns into the millions, questions have arisen about whether the governor and lieutenant gove...
By: WBAL-TV 11 Baltimore
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Political bonuses paid from health care contractors? - Video
Teachers seek help with health care costs
Texas teachers, gathered in Austin today, say they are choking on soaring health care costs and if something isn #39;t done more of them will drop out of the pro...
By: kxan
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Those interested in the future of health care reform should definitely check out Andrew Sprungs what if? piece on what Republicans would actually do if they had the chance after 2016. Sprung talks to three economists to get a sense of it. Its an outstanding article.
The first thing to note is that repeal is, in fact, dead. Theres simply no way to go back to the status quo ante. And in fact, hardly anyone would want to, including conservative policy wonks.
What I took away from the piece, however, was a bit different than that. It was that Republicans may be constrained by their own rhetoric into framing whatever they would want to do to improve (from their point of view) the new system as repeal and replace, even if the replace part of it basically just revives the things they are repealing.
In other words no one is going to simply shut down the exchanges (at least in the states where they are working, which will likely be the overwhelming majority of the states). No one is going to push young people off of their parents plans (or, to be more precise, allow insurance companies to do so). The Affordable Care Act was a large and complex law; there are all sorts of provisions in there that people now rely on and plan around, and for the most part no one is going to want to cause the disruptions that pure repeal would produce.
And yet there are quite a few conservative reforms which could certainly build on the structure thats now in place. Some of those reforms, as Sprung details, many liberals and liberal policy experts would be perfectly happy with. Some others wouldnt actually work well in practice, regardless of their rhetorical repeal. But the point is that a serious Republican Party would have an active health care agenda. It just wont (really) involve eliminating the ACA, just as the ACA itself didnt eliminate lots and lots of previous reforms and policies.
However, activists within the Republican Party are simply not going to accept building on Obamacare as a platform, at least not any time soon. What that means is that policy makers are going to have to, essentially, disguise building on Obamacare as repeal and replace. Which has two problems. One is that it may add considerable otherwise unnecessary policy complexity. The other is that its going to be vulnerable to charges that it doesnt fully repeal Obamacare -- because it wont! Remember, for example, the revolt against Eric Cantors bill to expand high-risk pools because they were tainted by their inclusion in the ACA. The problem is that President Barack Obama basically told the truth when he said that the Democratic bill included many Republican ideas, which means that there are relatively few pure conservative ideas available that have no association at all with the dreaded Kenyan socialist.
Now, its certainly possible that if Republicans really do capture the White House, the Senate and the House in 2016 that theyll forget all about that when they prepare health care legislation, and actually just pass a straightforward bill. They can always repeal the exchanges and replace them with Ronald Reagan Free Enterprise Private Insurance Access Points, and then move on to the sorts of things that conservative reformers want to add to Obamacare. And with a Republican in the White House, its very possible that activists and the conservative press will go along.
Its also possible that the risks of further health care reform will be relatively low-priority for most Republicans; they may be perfectly happy to have a Democratic filibuster kill something, and then move on to tax cuts or some other lower-risk, higher priority policy. In fact, that would be my bet. Health policy is hard, and Im not convinced that Republicans are anywhere close to ready to tackle it, or that they have all that much of an electoral incentive to do so.
To contact the writer of this article: Jbernstein62@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this article: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net.
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February 11, 2014 7:10 AM
STRATHAM Uninsured and confused about changes to the health care system?
Planned Parenthood will hold an enrollment fair and informational session at the Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham on Friday Feb. 14 from 1-3 p.m.
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England has been named a Navigator Organization in New Hampshire, and can help you find health care coverage that fits your lifestyle and budget. Reservations are encouraged for this event and can be made by calling 860-5923, but walk-ins are welcome. In case of an unanticipated cancellation it is best to contact the library the day of the event to confirm the date and time of the program at 772-4346.
STRATHAM The Wiggin Memorial Library will host electronics and ice fishing, a program by Tim Moore, on Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 6 p.m. Learn about some of the electronics available for ice fishing and how they can help double the amount of fish you catch through the ice.
For more information on this program please contact the library at 772-4346. In case of an unanticipated cancellation it is best to contact the library the day of the program to confirm the date and time.
STRATHAM Celebrating the survival of Stratham's four one-room schools from the 19th century, the Heritage Commission is hosting a free program on Friday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m., in the Morgera Community Room at the Fire Station on Winnicutt Road.
The evening will feature Steve Taylor, a vibrant speaker and renowned storyteller who served for 25 years as New Hampshire commissioner of agriculture.
Taylor's presentation, "New Hampshire's One-Room Rural Schools: The Romance and the Reality," explores the history of these little schools that faced many of the problems that challenge us today. Taylor's appearance is supported by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities Council through its popular "Humanities to Go" program.
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WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Monday again delayed a contentious health care law requirement that all but the smallest employers provide coverage to full-time workers, this time by giving medium-sized businesses another year to comply.
The so-called employer mandate, which has been opposed by businesses, was originally supposed to take effect in January under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But the administration granted a one-year delay in July.
The latest change, published in a 227-page final rule, allows medium-sized businesses with 50-99 full-time workers to avoid a tax penalty until 2016 for failing to offer health insurance. It also allows larger employers to phase in coverage by offering a health plan to 70 percent of their full-time workforce next year, rising to 95 percent in 2016.
Firms with fewer than 50 full-time workers are not required to provide coverage under Obamacare, but could qualify for federal subsidies through new health insurance marketplaces established under Obamacare.
The regulation had been the subject of intense business lobbying and drew a largely upbeat response from employer groups.
"I am quite pleasantly surprised," said Neil Trautwein of the National Retail Federation, a Washington-based trade group. "This is beginning to look more like something the business community can live with."
But the change triggered another wave of Republican calls to postpone Obamacare's mandate for individuals, which requires most Americans to enroll in coverage by March 31 or pay a penalty in their 2014 income taxes.
"Much like the individual mandate, the business mandate is bad for middle-class families and it will harm economic growth. But the answer to this problem is not random unilateral changes, stoking uncertainty," House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a statement.
"It's time to stop creating more chaos and delay Obamacare for all Americans."
Analysts said the change could help vulnerable Democrats in November's midterm elections battle for control of Congress by delaying a potential crescendo of complaints from small-business leaders, a theme Republicans also picked up on.
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Thursday
The Healthcare Movie
Health Care Justice-North Carolina will present The Healthcare Movie 6-7:30 p.m. in the Morrison Regional Library auditorium, 7015 Morrison Blvd. The 30-minute documentary examines the difference between the for-profit health care system and the single-payer Canadian health system. A panel discussion will follow. Details: pnhphcjnc.org.
Saturday
The Heart of Truth health expo
Medic and Pleasant Hill Baptist Church will host this free event from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at 517 Baldwin Ave. Free health screenings, vendors and more. Details: http://www.medic911.com.
Feb. 18
Living life on purpose
This group will meet for eight weeks and supports those who desire to discover meaning and zeal in their lives. Sessions will be 6-7:30 p.m. Feb. 18-April 1 at the Pfeiffer Institute of Marriage and Family Therapy, 4805 Park Road, Suite 240. Cost is $10 for an individual, $5 for additional family members. Details: 704-945-7324, kristindavis@pfeiffer.edu. To register: tinyurl.com/lifepurposegroup.
Epilepsy Support Groups
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"Institutional Racism" Threatens Health Care For Minorities
Dr. Ed Ehlinger, Commissioner of the Department of Health, addresses the Senate Health, Human Services and Housing Committee Tuesday, February 4, and outline...
By: uptakemn
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"Institutional Racism" Threatens Health Care For Minorities - Video