Doggett part of health care enrollment center opening
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett is taking part in Tuesday #39;s opening of an enrollment center at Austin #39;s Highland Mall for the Affordable Care Act.
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Doggett part of health care enrollment center opening - Video
President Obama and President Clinton Talk Health Care Reform
President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton met in New York at the Clinton Global Initiative to discuss the Affordable Care Act #39;s implementation...
By: PBS NewsHour
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President Obama and President Clinton Talk Health Care Reform - Video
How Does Health Care Reform Change Options for Young Adults?
Under the new health care reform law, young adults can stay on their parents #39; insurance until they are 26. What options are available for young adults with l...
By: PBS NewsHour
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How Does Health Care Reform Change Options for Young Adults? - Video
Reinventing Health Care: Lessons from the Field
"Reinventing Health Care: Lessons from the Field" marks the release of the summary report of the Aspen Institute Health Innovation Project. For the past two ...
By: AspenInstitute
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House Bill Health Care Law and Budget Plan Summary
civics video project.
By: Julia Gomez
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If health care reform works according to plan, a tidal wave of new patients will hit physician practices, pharmacies, insurance agencies, hospitals and other health care providers across the state.
About 83,000 of the estimated 1.5 million uninsured Ohioans are expected to sign up for coverage next year on the states Health Insurance Marketplace the centerpiece of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will offer subsidized health insurance to millions of Americans who have had little or no access to health care in the past.
Thats a lot of opportunity, said Phil Parks, vice president of marketing at the Wagner Insurance Agency in Dayton. I think what youre seeing today is people who have been selling insurance for a long time who see the opportunity and are gearing up and getting ready.
Consumers do not need an insurance agent to sign up for coverage in the marketplace, but a licensed agent or broker can help them navigate the system and sign up for coverage and receive a commission on the monthly premium from the insurer, Parks said.
He said most people signing up for insurance for the first time will need help dealing with the paperwork and administrative hassles that go along with buying insurance and filing claims.
We can answer all their questions and do all the things we were trained to do when we got into the insurance business, Parks said. We think that will be an invaluable service that people are going to turn to us for.
Depending on the numbers that come in, we could very quickly find it necessary to add people to our health division, he said.
Once they have health insurance, many new enrollees are expected to head to the doctor as soon as they can.
Springfield resident Mendelynn Fisher, 62, said she has not been able to afford health insurance in the past on her Social Security survivors benefits.
But shes anxious to see what her options might be on the health insurance exchange where she would likely eligible for a generous federal subsidy to help pay for coverage and has already made plans to see a doctor.
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Re: Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?
Please Enroll Responsibly: http://amzn.to/ojtR7E Only 99 cents By Lee Doren Subscribe to the iTunes Podcast of The Lee Doren Show: http://itunes.apple.com/us...
By: HowTheWorldWorks
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --The transition to population health management will require health care leaders to provide four kinds of leadership, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle told nearly 300 health care executives and health policy experts on September 16 at The Advisory Board Company's 2013 National Population Health Symposium.
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Leaders must show resiliency, innovation, engagement, and collaboration, breaking down silos that prevent us from making our market more efficient, Senator Daschle said. "What we need now is leadership," he summarized.
Senator Daschle also believes that there is bipartisan agreement that the millions of uninsured citizens and skyrocketing spending must be addressed. "Those who advocate that we do nothing but the status quo are not likely to survive the next several years," he said.
The audience included more than 40 CEOs and more than 100 other C-suite executives from the nation's leading health organizations. The event brought together executives from across the continuum of care, including speakers from hospitals and health systems, physician organizations, post-acute care providers, policymakers, employers, and insurers.
Real-World Guidance on Population Health Management Speakers included Jonathan Blum, Deputy Administrator and Director for the Center of Medicare at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Farzad Mostashari, MD, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Other insights they shared:
More Critical Insights on Population Health More than two dozen other speakers at the inaugural event discussed what works in population health management. Industry leaders and health policy experts shared answers to that question in practical, nuts-and-bolts terms, including:
The Symposium's diversity of speakers and attendees, particularly in including post-acute care providers, is unusual for industry events.
"Bringing together health care industry leaders with health care policy leaders, the Symposium was propelled by the firsthand perspectives and insights of organizations who have enacted different approaches to navigating the transition to population health management," said Chas Roades, Chief Research Officer at The Advisory Board Company, a global research, consulting, and technology firm that works with 4,100 organizations across health care and higher education.
Roades also shared The Advisory Board Company's top insights on population health management at the event, including:
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Health Care Symposium Highlights Next Steps for Population Health
By Ron Gutman
FORTUNE -- Our country is facing a health care crisis. States are divided on Obamacare and Medicaid, and new legislation is not making any clear progress in increasing access to affordable health care. According to findings by the Urban Institute, nearly two out of every three uninsured low-income individuals some 9.7 million people who would have qualified for subsidized coverage under Obamacare might not receive it next year because their states have not expanded Medicaid. Also, according to a study by The Association of American Medical Colleges, we'll be facing a shortage of more than 90,000 doctors in the next five years.
While there have been a lot of gloom and doom articles about these significant health care challenges we're grappling with, there has been surprisingly little talk about the incredible technology solutions that are being developed specifically to combat these issues. Legislation is slow, but technology is fast. And there are many ways that we can begin to increase access to affordable care with technology.
A doctor's time is increasingly scarce and expensive. The only scalable, near-term solution is to enable physicians to be more efficient and manage more patients, while empowering them to improve the quality of care they can provide.
What if doctors used powerful mobile applications to remotely track their patients' treatment compliance and progress? What if they could provide patients with remote access to their expertise, or to other medical knowledge they trust? What if they kept in- person office visits to the time they're really required for longer, in-depth consultations?
MORE:Health apps don't save people, people do
Health care providers should be making use of new mobile technologies that will empower physicians to become "coaches of care," and facilitate significantly higher quality of care in every patient interaction. Instead of people waiting for weeks or months to get a rushed appointment where they receive second rate care, health care facilities can support the wide adoption of technologies that will enable doctors to remotely connect, monitor, and interact with hundreds, even thousands of patients.
And the technology behind this is not just conceptualit's here. Forget flat screen televisions and laptop computers without a doubt, our mobile smartphones and wireless tablets are the most powerful devices we own. With Google (GOOG) reporting an astonishing 1.5 million new Android devices activated every day, the future of health care truly is in the palm of our hands.
There are already some incredible startups developing mobile products that facilitate more efficient (and more economical) delivery of care. While these products, some of which are still in the early stages of development, won't replace or automate a doctor's job, they are great precursors for fostering a more transparent doctor-patient relationship.
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How likely are a company #39;s employees to accept coverage under Health Care Reform?
In this video, Dave Marini of ADP discusses findings from a recent study by the ADP Research Institute® and suggests ways to improve participation rates. For...
By: ADP
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How likely are a company's employees to accept coverage under Health Care Reform? - Video
By 2020, Mumbai is expected to become one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. The much-touted health care infrastructure in the megalopolis has, however, failed to cope with the exponential population growth.
According to the 2011 census, Mumbai and its suburbs are home to 1.2 crore persons. Projected calculations estimate that more than 13 lakh people will be added to the population pool by 2021.
According to BMC figures, the island city has seen a reduction of two lakh persons and recorded negative growth in past ten years and upto seven lakh persons have been added to suburbs. To add to the woes of this migrating population, the health infrastructure in the suburbs continues to be poor. In the past 10 years, the population in the island city has decreased substantially.
There are numerous reasons for this demographic shift. Clearly, former residents of the island city are giving up their erstwhile small houses in search of cheaper and spacious properties in the suburbs, said a senior BMC official.
Researchers have pointed out that there is a glaring deficiency in public health infrastructure in the suburbs as health care facilities continue to be concentrated in the island city. This, in spite of the area seeing a negative growth of population. Increase in slum population and migration of city islanders to the suburbs has led to the mushrooming of numerous small-time nursing homes and private hospitals.
The Mumbai Human Development Report 2009, points out that, on an average, only about 21% of city households use public health services. The rest approach private doctors or hospitals. To add to the problem there is a huge scarcity of public dispensaries and health posts in Mumbai, which compels a majority of people to depend on private physicians. All this creates the breeding ground for quacks or bogus doctors and vulnerability of the poor to their mercy.
While, tertiary care hospitals like KEM hospital in Parel, Nair hospital in Mumbai Central and Sion hospital are among the top-notch medical colleges in India and they produce among the best doctors in the country, the load on these three hospitals to cater to a humongous influx of patients is beyond comprehension.
Patients throng the hospital corridors not only from Mumbai but also from satellite towns of Thane, Kalyan, Mira Road, Bhayander and Navi Mumbai. In totality, KEM, Nair and Sion Hospitals, see a footfall of up to 14,000 patients a day. This has led to the hospitals infrastructure to crumble.
BMCs health committee member and NCP corporator Dr Saiyeda Khan explains that there is an acute disparity in distribution of hospital beds across Mumbai. The island city (Colaba to Mahim) is home to three super specialty hospitals - state-run JJ Hospital, KEM Hospital and Nair Hospital with capacity to hold more than 6,000 patients at any given point of time. In comparison, the bed capacity at Sion Hospital which caters to the population from the far suburbs is merely 5,000. This disparity exists even as many of are migrating to the suburbs from the island city in search of better living conditions, said Khan.
It is imperative that basic health care and treatment be provided in the 16 peripheral hospitals across the city that are run by the civic body. Apart from this, the bed capacity in peripheral hospitals and Sion Hospital, which is the only tertiary care super-specialty hospital in the suburbs, should be strengthened, said Khan.
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When Bill Clinton ran for president, his campaign headquarters famously had a sign on the wall reading: "It's the economy, stupid."
One of the lines of criticism against the next Democratic president has been that he allegedly hasn't paid enough attention to the still-ailing economy and instead chose to implement dramatic reforms of the health-care sector. If it was "the economy, stupid" in 1992, shouldn't that be even more so in 2013?
This evening at the Clinton Global Initiative, Bill Clinton invited President Barack Obama to address this line of criticism directly.
(Read more: Bono defends Ireland and its low taxes)
"Why didn't you just focus on the economy and leave this alone?" Clinton asked.
Obama's answer challenged the premise of the question.
"It's important to remember that health care is the economy. A massive part of our economy. The idea that we can separate out the two is a fantasy," Obama replied.
The president went on to elaborate on that theme in a way that seemed aimed directly at Republican lawmakers who are attempting to defund certain aspects of Obamacare. Health-care reform, he argued, is a form of deficit reduction.
The fact is that the U.S. has, for decades, lagged behind other industrialized nation when it comes to health-care coverage.
"So when we talk about our deficit, the reason we have not only current deficits and projected long-term deficits, the structural deficit we have is because of how much we spend on health care," Obama said. "If we spent the same amount of money on health care, with the same outcomes, as Canada, or the U.K., or Japan, that would remove our structural deficit."
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When Bill Clinton ran for president, his campaign headquarters famously had a sign on the wall reading: "It's the economy, stupid."
One of the lines of criticism against the next Democratic president has been that he allegedly hasn't paid enough attention to the still-ailing economy and instead chose to implement dramatic reforms of the health-care sector. If it was "the economy, stupid" in 1992, shouldn't that be even more so in 2013?
This evening at the Clinton Global Initiative, Bill Clinton invited President Barack Obama to address this line of criticism directly.
(Read more: Bono defends Ireland and its low taxes)
"Why didn't you just focus on the economy and leave this alone?" Clinton asked.
Obama's answer challenged the premise of the question.
"It's important to remember that health care is the economy. A massive part of our economy. The idea that we can separate out the two is a fantasy," Obama replied.
The president went on to elaborate on that theme in a way that seemed aimed directly at Republican lawmakers who are attempting to defund certain aspects of Obamacare. Health-care reform, he argued, is a form of deficit reduction.
The fact is that the U.S. has, for decades, lagged behind other industrialized nation when it comes to health-care coverage.
"So when we talk about our deficit, the reason we have not only current deficits and projected long-term deficits, the structural deficit we have is because of how much we spend on health care," Obama said. "If we spent the same amount of money on health care, with the same outcomes, as Canada, or the U.K., or Japan, that would remove our structural deficit."
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By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton took to the same stage Tuesday to promote the new health care law that Obama championed after Clinton's own efforts to reform health care years earlier fell flat.
Joining forces under dimmed lights in a hotel ballroom in New York, Obama and Clinton laid out the law's benefits and its connection to the economy while dispelling what they called disinformation about its downsides. Clinton, acting as host, lobbed the questions; Obama answered with the eagerness of a guest on a daytime TV talk show.
It was a pair of presidents in dark suits, reclining on comfy, white chairs as they reflected on the effort that went in to passing the sweeping law, and the intense challenges facing its implementation. New exchanges where Americans can buy health insurance - a centerpiece of the law - open for enrollment on Oct. 1.
"I don't have pride of authorship for this thing, I just want the thing to work," Obama said. He added that he was confident Americans will be swayed by its advantages even though polls show they're deeply wary of the law. "The devil you know is always better than the devil you don't know."
Clinton felt free to point out some of the drawbacks in the law's implementation, while making clear that Obama was not the one to blame. For example, he noted that the Supreme Court said states could not be forced to take Medicaid money to finance the expansion of health coverage.
"That's going to lead to a cruel result, and there's nothing the president can do, and it's not his fault. That's what the Supreme Court said," Clinton said.
The hourlong appearance, sponsored by the former president's foundation known as the Clinton Global Initiative, marks the start of a concerted campaign by the Obama administration and its allies to inform consumers about their options under the law. It also took place around the 20th anniversary of Clinton's address to a joint session of Congress calling for an overhaul of the health care system. That effort, by Clinton and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, was unsuccessful.
Mrs. Clinton, who ran against Obama before becoming his first-term secretary of state, introduced the two presidents with a list of what they have in common. They're both left-handed, love golf and have fabulous daughters, she said. And one more thing:
"They each married far above themselves," Clinton said with a laugh.
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CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Fitch Ratings has affirmed Health Care Service Corporation's (HCSC) Insurer Financial Strength Rating (IFS) at 'A+', its long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'A', and the 'A' rating on the company's $500 million issue of 4.70% senior unsecured notes due Jan. 15, 2021. The Rating Outlooks are Stable
KEY RATING DRIVERS
HCSC's strong competitive position, conservatively structured balance sheet strength and solid earnings profile all support the current ratings. Balanced against these strengths is HCSC's concentration in its two key markets of Illinois and Texas.
On July 31, 2013, HCSC completed its acquisition of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Montana's insurance assets and operations. BCBS Montana will become one of HCSC's five BCBS operating divisions. BCBS Montana has 250,000 customers.
HCSC is a leading provider of health insurance and managed care services in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. It is the nation's largest nonpublic health insurer with greater than 13.5 million members.
A key competitive advantage is the company's exclusive right to use Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Blues) trademarks in HCSC's four core states. In addition, access to Blue Card, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's (BCBSA) national account platform, has helped establish and grow HCSC's leading market position.
HCSC has a conservative balance sheet measured by strong statutory capitalization, modest financial leverage and a high quality, liquid investment portfolio. HCSC's NAIC RBC ratio was 620% of the company action level (CAL) at year-end 2012. Surplus increased by nearly 7% or $656 million to $10.2 billion through the first half of 2013.
Debt to total capital as of June 30, 2013 was 4.8%, which Fitch considers very modest for both the current rating category and the entire market sector. The company has $500 million in senior unsecured debt with 4.7% coupon maturing in January 2021.
HCSC's annualized return on capital was considered strong at 11.8% through the first six months of 2013, especially in light of its conservative capital position. HCSC's EBITDA margin was 8.2% through June 30, 2013, which is consistent with Fitch's median guideline for the current rating category.
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By: Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Health care is reuniting President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
The two are set to appear together Tuesday to discuss Obama's health care law at a session sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative, the former president's foundation.
The joint appearance comes exactly one week before people who don't have health insurance can start signing up on Oct. 1 for coverage plans through new insurance marketplaces. It also comes as the Obama administration and those who stand to benefit from the law's success, such as insurance companies, launch a campaign to inform consumers about their options under the law.
The Affordable Care Act requires everyone to carry health insurance or face penalties. Obama has said the goal is to make health care more affordable while extending coverage to millions of people who don't have it.
Clinton's appearance will be his second in recent weeks to help promote the 3-year-old law, which has been contentious from the start. In a speech earlier this month in his home state of Arkansas, the former president explained how the law works and argued that it makes the country stronger. He urged opponents to quit trying to undo the law and to work instead to improve it.
The law "does give us the best chance we have to achieve nearly universal coverage, provide higher quality health care and lower the rate of cost increases, which we have got to do in a competitive global economy," said Clinton, who failed to expand access to health care during his eight years as president.
The Republican-controlled House has voted more than three dozen times to repeal, delay or eliminate funding for the law, arguing that it hurts the economy by imposing too many requirements on businesses and individuals, and driving health care costs higher as a result. None of the bills have advanced in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Obama highlights popular, consumer-friendly provisions of the law, such as requiring that mammograms and other health screenings be conducted free of charge, and allowing parents to keep children on their plans until they turn 26. He also has highlighted requirements for insurers to spend a certain percentage of premiums on health care.
But large numbers of Americans say they don't understand the law. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted earlier this month found just 30 percent of people saying they understand the law and how it will affect them. Sixty-nine percent said they understand the law only some or not very well.
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Inspired to Collaborate: Preparing tomorrow #39;s health professionals for the modern health care system
Penn State College of Medicine is among only 11 of the nation #39;s medical schools—and the only one in Pennsylvania—to earn a $1 million grant from the American...
By: PennStateHershey
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Health Care IT and the C-Suite: Chief Information Officer
http://advisory.com with Jared Landis, Senior Consultant, Health Care IT Suite.
By: The Advisory Board Company
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Health Care IT and the C-Suite: Chief Information Officer - Video
What are the first steps to complying with Health Care Reform?
The starting point for navigating Health Care Reform is understanding and evaluating the laws #39; potential impact. In this video, ADP #39;s John Haslinger discusse...
By: ADP
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What are the first steps to complying with Health Care Reform? - Video
Doctors talk about health care reform
Mississippi is *counting-down to the massive-healthcare-overhaul.
By: wapttv
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