Rep. Robert Hurt has introduced legislation that would allow individuals to remove their profiles from the federal health insurance exchange website. Hurt argued it would protect the privacy of people who create a profile, but ultimately choose not to sign up for health insurance, noting that the HealthCare.gov website was hacked in July. Officials have said that no personal information was compromised in the hack.
Washington is full of ideas to overhaul Medicare. Some would increase the program's eligibility age, others would charge higher-income beneficiaries more for their coverage. There's movement to link payment to the quality — rather than the quantity — of care delivered. Marge Ginsburg decided to ask ordinary Americans how they would change the federal entitlement program. Seventy-seven percent of participants in her "MedCHAT" group sessions said Medicare should cover at least one year of care in a nursing home, in supportive housing or at a person's home. Eight-five percent wanted "modest coverage" of dental, vision and hearing services. To help Medicare last another half-century — it turns 50 next year — 85 percent were willing to reduce program spending on current and future beneficiaries.
Three times in one week, 34-year-old Michael Granillo returned to the emergency room of the Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Southern California, seeking relief from intense back pain. Each time, Granillo waited a little while and then left the ER without ever being seen by a doctor. But on a recent Wednesday morning, he woke up feeling even worse. This time, Granillo's wife, Sonya, tried something different. Using a new service offered by the hospital, she was able to make an ER appointment online, using her mobile phone.
As I wrote last week, one of the nation's biggest employers — Boeing — is pioneering a concept in providing health care benefits to its employees that eliminates insurance companies as middlemen. What Boeing is doing represents a seismic shift in health care financing and delivery that potentially will have more far-reaching effects than Obamacare, primarily because it is coming from the private sector, not the government. It is a shift that the big health insurers have been anticipating and preparing for since long before the Affordable Care Act was enacted.
Several years ago, a California study showed that a half-dozen elective surgeries were being performed far more often in Humboldt County than they were in the rest of the state. The procedures included hip and knee replacements, hysterectomies and carotid endarterectomies, a surgery to remove plaque buildup in the carotid arteries. Geographical variation in the delivery of health care can harm patients and increase costs. That is especially true when it comes to surgery, which is usually more expensive and riskier than less invasive treatments.
Everyone seems to agree that proton beam therapy--a type of radiation that can attack cancerous tumors while generally sparing the surrounding tissue--is an exciting technology with a lot of potential. But some insurers and disease experts say that, until there's better evidence that proton therapy is more effective at treating various cancers than traditional types of less expensive radiation, coverage shouldn't be routine. That approach doesn't sit well with proponents, some of whom say that insurance coverage is critical for necessary research of the controversial therapy's uses.