The Face of Free Government Health Care

June 30, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Economics & Financing, Medicaid, Miscellaneous, Politics, State-Level Healthcare Reform / No Comments

A couple of months ago I wrote about how one percent of adults in the US get free government health care. While the statistics in the February Pew study were very interesting (and somewhat shocking), I saw a report in a local Connecticut newspaper (The Day, June 26th) that put a face on these statistics.

The Day’s story was about Jihad Abdulshaheed, a 36-year-old man who had been incarcerated since November 2007. The judge was prepared to sentence to a one year sentence, and since he had already served at least 50% of his time, under the Department of Corrections guidelines for nonviolent prisoners he could have been released the next day.…

Cutting Medicare Physician Payments – Beyond the 10.6%

June 22, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Economics & Financing, Federal Healthcare Reform, Health System Reform, Medicare, Politics / 1 Comment

The focus on Medicare payments to physicians for the last six months has been on the 0.5% increase Congress enacted for the first 6 months of 2008 to replace the 10.1% reduction that would have occurred under Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula. Legislation to continue this rate for the rest of the year failed a required procedural vote in the Senate last week.* This leaves Medicare physician payments after June 30th uncertain – although it is expected that Congress will do something in the next week, or three.

However, beyond the impending Medicare 10.6% reimbursement reduction for all physicians, the Graham Center of American Academy of Family Physicians published a short report on June 13th that expands the analysis to include pending change in how Medicare reimburses physicians in Physician Scarcity Areas (PSAs), and Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs).…

Tax Exempt Status for Health Care Organizations – Get Some Fact$

May 29, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Economics & Financing, Politics / No Comments

I’ve been following the controversy about the tax-exempt status of non-profit organizations* since several hospitals (including the major teaching hospital affiliated with my alma mater) were chastised several years ago for charging uninsured patients more than insurance companies would have paid, and then sending collection agencies after these people. This was follow-up by Congressional hearings and investigations. More recently a bill was introduced here in Massachusetts to tax college and university endowments that are over $1 billion (which includes my undergraduate alma mater), and a few days ago the New York Times had an article about this issue and a state court case denying the tax-exempt status of a daycare center.…

Health Reform Evolution

May 12, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Economics & Financing, Health System Reform, Medicare, Politics, Private-Employer Based Health Insurance / No Comments

Placing health reform in an historical context shows how the debate has evolved. For example, the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare was formed to address Medicare’s projected insolvency – at a time when the overall focus for health reform was on cost containment. However, while the Commission met and deliberated, the booming economy shifted the debate away from cost containment towards access and coverage expansion, and the Commission’s 1999 final report, proposed adding an expensive outpatient drug benefit to Medicare.

Comparing two more recent perspectives on the future of the US healthcare system also illustrates how thinking about health reform evolves.…

Health Care Cost Containment – Reality versus Rhetoric

May 2, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Economics & Financing, Federal Healthcare Reform, Politics / No Comments

Cost Containment
Controlling Healthcare Costs
Reducing Health care Spending
Eliminating Waste, Fraud and Abuse
Creating More Value from Healthcare Spending
Increasing Cost Effectiveness for the Healthcare Dollar

These are the types of headlines and catch phrases that we are going to see over the next 6 months as the healthcare focus in the 2008 elections zeros in on spending and costs.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how the economy has become the #1 issues of concern for the 2008 elections. Because of this, costs and spending will be the major focus for the political debate about healthcare reform.…

FDA’s Resources for Evaluating and Monitoring Medicines and New Science

April 24, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / FDA, Politics, Quality of Care & Safety / No Comments

For several years it has been clear that funding limitations are impairing the FDA’s ability to attract and retain qualified clinicians and scientists to review applications for new drugs and biologics, and to support their internal research and analysis concerning new drug development, manufacturing and monitoring technologies – particularly for biologic medicines. In addition, the FDA hasn’t been able to update its information technology systems to maximize staff productivity. (I suspect some people will be tempted to comment on the “productivity” of government employees, but I have found the FDA’s professional staff generally very qualified and hard working.)

On Tuesday, the Energy and Commerce Committee in the US House of Representatives held a hearing about the FDA’s ability to adequately oversee foreign production of medicines being sold in the US.…

1 of 100 Adults Gets Free Government Health Care

April 21, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Access to Healthcare, Delivery of Healthcare, Economics & Financing, Medicaid, Politics, Private-Employer Based Health Insurance / No Comments

A recent report from the Pew Foundation indicated that 1 out of 100 adults in the US get free government health care with no premiums, deductibles or co-payments. The reason this report didn’t get more media attention was because the 1% of Americans getting free government health care are behind bars – as in prison or jail.

The Pew report indicates that for the first time, more than 1 in 100 adults in America are in prison or jail. That’s over 2.3 million in state or federal prisons or local jails, and the numbers and percentages have been growing. (See the Department of Justice chart below)

This data is an interesting launching point into other aspects of our current health care system’s problems:

First, health care costs for people behind bars represent about 10% of the costs of incarceration.…

A Perfect Stormy Mess for Health Reform

April 15, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Access to Healthcare, Delivery of Healthcare, Economics & Financing, Federal Healthcare Reform, Health System Reform, Medicaid, Politics, State-Level Healthcare Reform / 4 Comments

A year ago the hype in healthcare was about state-based reform initiatives. Massachusetts was implementing its law, and several other states – including California – were considering their own proposals for increasing insurance coverage as a first step towards universal coverage and cost containment.

How things have changed in a year. Not only has California’s initiative crumbled under the expected costs to employers, but the economic downturn has undercut states’ healthcare expansion ideas, and may force them to cut back Medicaid enrollment and/or services. This week’s National Journal has an article titled “State’s Rapidly Shifting Gears,” that discusses these and other issues, including how a few years ago states cut their Medicaid payments to providers, so that on average Medicaid pays physicians 69% of Medicare levels, and how pending Federal Medicaid rules and proposals would reduce funding for State Medicaid programs making it difficult for states to reverse these payment reductions.…

More on the Supply of Primary Care Clinicians

April 9, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Access to Healthcare, Delivery of Healthcare, Economics & Financing, Medicare, Politics / No Comments

Yesterday, when I wrote about “Ensuring Enough Primary Care Clinicians,” I didn’t realize that public radio station WBUR would be doing a story this week on the same topic. (The WBUR story can be heard/read on their web-site.)

Nor did I know that this was an agenda item for today’s Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) meeting. While the one-page MedPAC briefing summary doesn’t include their draft recommendations, Modern Healthcare reports that they are recommending budget-neutral adjustments to Medicare’s fee schedule to increase payments to physicians who provide primary-care services – including office and home visits, and visits to patients in non-acute facilities.…

Ensuring Enough Primary Care Clinicians

April 8, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Access to Healthcare, Clinician-Patient Relationships, Delivery of Healthcare, Economics & Financing, Health System Reform, Politics / 3 Comments

Like many complicated problems in the US healthcare system, setting a goal can be easy, but achieving it can be hard. In recent years there has been a number of proposals for increasing the use of primary care clinicians to help patients with chronic diseases (like diabetes) manage their care and avoid long-term complications – and to presumably lower long-term healthcare spending. For example, the “Patient Centered Medical Home” proposal supported by a dozen organizations, (including companies and family practice and pediatrics associations), doesn’t specifically use the term “primary care,” but it gets to the same result – heightened relationships and communications between patients and a particular clinician or clinic.…

Canada’s Proposal for Subsequent Entry Biologics

April 1, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Economics & Financing, FDA, Patents & IP, Politics, Quality of Care & Safety, Therapeutic Substitution & Interchange / No Comments

After writing about Follow-On Biologics in a recent posting, I saw a notice about Health Canada’s proposal for how they would approve biologic products that are similar to already approved biologics whose patents have expired. They call these products Subsequent Entry Biologics (SEBs), and the proposal is open for public comment from March 14, 2008 until April 16, 2008.

While the draft guidance is lengthy, it does strike an overall well-balanced tone:

“SEBs are not ‘generic biologics'”
Approval of an SEB does not mean it can automatically be substituted for the original biologic that it is “similar” to
Comparative studies will be required to generate data showing similarity to the original biologic in terms of quality, safety and efficacy

In many ways, the draft guidance is similar (no pun intended) to the process the US FDA used to approve some generic drugs prior to the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act.…

Ben Franklin’s Virtues and the Pennsylvania Primary

April 1, 2008 / Michael D. Miller MD / Health Policy and Communications Blog, Nutrition, Politics / No Comments

While reading a Ben Franklin biography (“The First American,” by H. W. Brands), I was struck by a list of 13 virtues he wrote while in his mid-20s to guide his life:

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness. Drink not to elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order. Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e.,…

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