Affordable Care Act (ACA)
See the following -
Why Not Medicaid For All?
My Sunday column on the potential consequences of Obamacare’s botched rollout ended by sketching a scenario in which the program’s Medicaid expansion is deemed a success while its reform of the individual market leads to much-higher-than-expected costs and much-lower-than-expected participation rates. This combination would no doubt be politically helpful to the Republican Party in the short run, but (I argued) it would actually leave liberals with a fairly clear path forward... Read More »
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Why Obama’s Tech-Savvy Team Couldn’t Make Obamacare Glitch-Free
As the online rollout of the Affordable Care Act continues to be plagued by glitches, many of the president’s allies and foes are wondering the same thing: how could the most tech-savvy White House in history launch a flawed Web site? Read More »
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Why Rate Shock Might Matter
There has been a lengthy, multi-sided debate in the last week or so, with much ad hominem and gnashing of teeth, over whether California’s insurance premiums are going up because of Obamacare, and if so what that might mean for the law’s success or failure... Read More »
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Why Robert Reich Cares So Passionately About Economic Inequality
Friday night's NewsHour featured about six-and-a-half minutes of an interview with newly minted movie star Robert Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. We thought some folks might be interested in the entire discussion and therefore are presenting it in two installments, edited slightly for ease of reading.
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Why States Are Doing Obamacare Better
A small—and somewhat surprising—handful of states are implementing Obamacare much more effectively than the Obama administration. Read More »
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Why Tech Guys Think They Can Sell Health Insurance
When New York State announced the participants in its Obamacare exchange last week, there was an unfamiliar company on the list: Oscar Health Insurance. [The] company is seeking to solve a challenge few tech entrepreneurs have tackled... Read More »
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Why Telemedicine’s Window Is Finally Opening
...The telemedicine window has opened, and 2015 will be the year that we go through it. The idea of telemedicine has floated around in the “soup” primarily in relation to ensuring care in rural areas...
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Why The Government Never Gets Tech Right
For the first time in history, a president has had to stand in the Rose Garden to apologize for a broken Web site. But HealthCare.gov is only the latest episode in a string of information technology debacles by the federal government. Indeed, according to the research firm the Standish Group, 94 percent of large federal information technology projects over the past 10 years were unsuccessful...
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Why US Government IT Fails So Hard, So Often
The rocky launch of the Department of Health and Human Services' HealthCare.gov is the most visible evidence at the moment of how hard it is for the federal government to execute major technology projects. But the troubled "Obamacare" IT system—which uses systems that aren't connected in any way to the federal IT infrastructure—is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the government's IT problems. Read More »
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Why You Need Open Source For Health Exchange Success
But whether the states build their own or rely on the federal government to create a HIX, time is in short supply. By October 1, 2013, Exchanges must be ready for constituents to select health plans that will begin coverage January 1, 2014. The pressure is on, and the question is: How can states build these Exchanges in time and without overspending? The answer is open source software (OSS) and open source-style collaborative development.
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Why Your Doctor Feels Like A 'Beaten Dog'
Assembly-line patient visits, poor care for the chronically ill, stacks of paperwork, and endless red tape: This is the life of the American physician...
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With Affordable Care Act, Canceled Policies For New York Professionals
Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it. Read More »
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Without A Universal Personal Identifier, Healthcare Is Awash In Social Security numbers
The healthcare industry is swimming in Social Security numbers, thanks to the necessities of patient record management systems. But balancing those requirements with fraud mitigation and privacy protections is proving a big challenge...
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Woe-Bamacare
Regardless of one’s political stance, sometimes it is just plain hard to watch the woes of Obamacare. It’s a bit like watching mixed martial arts fighting – it’s often hard to distinguish the winner from the loser. The technology behind the system has continued to be an open wound, and yesterday it just got worse... Read More »
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Would Romney Kill Meaningful Use?
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is no stranger to health information technology advocacy. As governor of Massachusetts, he helped spur initiatives such as the $50 million nonprofit Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, for instance, and he signed a 2003 bill meant to enable Bay State providers to more widely adopt e-prescribing. Read More »
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