Testimony supporting Governor’s drug price cap and opposing OHS primary care plan

The Insurance and Real Estate Committee is hearing today the Governor’s healthcare bills. Areas of disagreement include a proposal to limit how much drug prices can rise and the Office of Health Strategy’s (OHS) plans to cap the growth of overall healthcare spending while doubling spending on primary care. Among non-state agencies, fifteen people and…

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OHS primary care committee sharply critical of agency’s plan

In this month’s meeting of the Office of Health Strategy’s Primary Care Subgroup, patient and consumer advocates joined insurers raising very strong concerns about OHS’s plans and capacity to implement the agency’s plan for primary care in Connecticut. OHS plans to double the share of Connecticut’s healthcare spending on primary care while tightly restricting growth…

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Cost Cap primary care project only focusing on raising spending, not services

At the October 26th Primary Care Subgroup meeting, in response to questioning by a member, the Office of Health Strategy’s (OHS) consultants repeatedly confirmed that the goal of the Cost Cap provision on primary care is solely to raise spending, not to increase services. Members raised serious concerns about sending more money into the current…

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New Cost Cap Steering Committee is industry-driven

The first meeting of the new Steering Committee to guide the Office of Health Strategy’s (OHS) plan to cap healthcare cost growth was uncharacteristically quiet. The meeting started with public comment from the Universal Healthcare Foundation of CT that the committee membership is “not balanced”, includes mainly members with “deep vested business interests”, and lacks…

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Lessons from SIM: Advice from Independent Advocates

Download the full responses here Connecticut’s latest attempt to reform our health system, SIM, ended last month. Despite $45 million in federal dollars, SIM didn’t accomplish much. It was mired in controversy and criticism from across the state’s healthcare landscape. SIM followed several past failed attempts to reform Connecticut’s health system. We asked independent consumer…

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Congressional move to rein in innovations that harm people, Connecticut advocates’ SIM concerns addressed in DC

A new bill in Congress, proposed by both Democrats and Republicans, would place controls on federal grants for payment and delivery reform projects. The Strengthening Innovation in Medicare and Medicaid Act was introduced last week to “increase transparency and accountability within the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI)”. CMMI is the federal agency…

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SIM primary care capitation proposal gets another tepid reception

This week, SIM presented to the Healthcare Cabinet their proposal to capitate primary care, initially for Medicare members, but eventually for all state residents. The proposal is to move primary care to capitated “bundles” – one for basic primary care services and a voluntary, supplemental payment for expanded activities such as infrastructure and HIT and…

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PCMH Plus Year 1 Performance and Savings Results: Increased state costs but little evidence of impact on quality

Read the full report This month, Connecticut Medicaid announced the first year performance of PCMH Plus[1], their controversial new shared savings program[2] compared to the prior year. Under shared savings, if health systems (ACOs) are able to lower the cost of their members’ care, they receive a bonus equal to half those savings. PCMH Plus…

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CT News Junkie: What does it take to stop repeating a bad idea?

Albert Einstein believed the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. Unfortunately, Connecticut policymakers haven’t learned this lesson. Provider financial risk is a bad idea that has failed both in our state and nationally. Read more

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Thirty-one independent consumer advocates share concerns with SIM’s latest push for capitation

Despite the historic failures of capitation in Connecticut and beyond, our state’s SIM health planning office is continuing the drumbeat to re-impose the risky system across our state, this time for primary care. In Primary Care Payment Reform: Unlocking the Potential of Primary Care, the SIM office is proposing set payments for primary care providers…

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