States would save money by accepting the Medicaid expansion in President Obama's healthcare law, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Health Affairs, said states that reject the Medicaid expansion will end up paying more for healthcare coverage than states that participate — and covering far fewer people. Together, 14 states that have rejected the expansion will spend $1 billion more on uncompensated care than they would under the expansion, and they'll lose out on $8.4 billion in federal payments, researchers from the Rand Corporation said.
Perhaps it's worth simplifying this discussion about premiums under Obamacare a bit. This whole conversation is about the individual insurance exchanges, which effectively replace today's individual market (and have nothing to do with the insurance offered by Medicare, Medicaid, or employers). If all goes well, a bit less than 10 percent of the population will get insurance through these exchanges by 2023. In 2014, however, only about 2.5 percent are expected to be in the exchanges. So what happens when you turn the individual market into the exchanges? A few things, mainly: – No more raising prices or refusing to offer insurance to sick people; – Less price discrimination allowed against old people;
Fewer than 1 in 10 doctors used electronic records last year to U.S. standards, according to a survey that shows the challenge facing a multibillion-dollar effort to digitize the health system for improved patient care. Only 9.8 percent of 1,820 primary-care and specialty doctors said they had electronic systems that met U.S. rules for "meaningful use," a list of tasks such as tracking referrals or filling prescriptions online. Less than half all those surveyed, or 44 percent, had any system in place, according to the report published by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente published a developers' API Monday that will allow independent application developers to access its healthcare facility information and produce user applications with it. Over the last two years, Kaiser has itself produced four mobile applications for iPhone and Android smartphones that allow Kaiser healthcare plan participants to set up doctors' appointments, see electronic medical records, view most lab results and refill prescriptions, among other things. Those applications have been downloaded from the iTunes store 85,000 times, prompting Kaiser officials to realize what a valuable new channel has been opened between itself and its members.
As Steven Brill laid out in his recent TIME cover story, "Bitter Pill," the cost of various health care services is based on a mysterious and confusing set of formulas that leave consumers in the dark. This is no more true that when it comes to the uninsured who, without an insurer or large employers to negotiate for them, are often stuck with massive bills for services they had no choice about and which are set at prices many times more than what individual procedures and treatments actually cost. When the Affordable Care Act comes online fully in 2014, most currently uninsured Americans will gain new coverage, but hospital pricing, the foundation for insurance premiums, seems likely to remain shrouded in mystery.
Medicare beneficiaries in Miami-Dade County lead the nation in funds spent on their care per capita, according to new federal data. The report by the Department of Health and Human Services found that Medicare spent $16,723 in 2011 for every Medicare beneficiary in Miami-Dade, which was 75 percent higher than the national average. The good news for Uncle Sam is that figure was down from $16,786 in 2010. It's long been known that Medicare spending is high in Miami-Dade, and medical providers tend to charge more here than in other markets.