Search results for: cost cap
Déjà vu at Medicaid Council meeting
Friday’s Medicaid Council meeting focused on the controversialPCMH+ shared savings program reminding many observers of years of rosy DSS presentations about the very similar, failed HUSKY MCO program. PCMH+ started six months ago with 137,000 members. The concept is to give Accountable Care Organizations (large health systems) a reason to lower the total cost of…
Read MoreAdvocates document concerns with PCMH+ implementation
The Medicaid Study Group, a coalition of independent consumer advocates, have published an update on CT Medicaid’s new payment reform experiment, PCMH+, fact sheet and report. The program started January 1st with 137,037 members. Under the new shared saving payment model, large health systems (called ACOs in other states and programs), get half the health care savings…
Read MoreCBO estimates that 22 million more Americans will become uninsured by 2026 under the Senate’s ACA replacement proposal
Thursday morning Senate leaders published their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act and modified it earlier today. The Senate proposal closely follows the bill that passed the House in May. According to today’s Congressional Budget Office’s report, the Senate bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 15 million next year and…
Read MoreMD drug anti-gouging bill passes into law, CT Senate passes drug benefits fairness bill
On Friday, a Maryland billto control generic drug prices passed into law without the Governor’s signature. Maryland’s Attorney General Frosh championed this first-in-the-nation anti-gouging bill. The issue was raised in response to extreme price increases in older drugs such as EpiPen, naloxone, and Daraprim. The bill requires Maryland’s Medicaid program to notify the Attorney General…
Read MoreCBO estimates that AHCA would cause 23 million more uninsured in ten years
In more federal health news, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released their analysis of the impact of the House’s American Health Care Act yesterday. CBO predicts that 23 million more Americans would lose health coverage in the next decade, 14 million just next year, if the AHCA becomes law. The law would reduce the federal…
Read MorePresident’s budget proposal includes large cuts to state Medicaid funding, among other health programs
President Trump’s FY 2018 budget proposalincludes $610 billion in mandatory savings over the next decade by instituting state Medicaid block grants or per capita caps starting in FY 2020. This goes beyond cuts included in the American Health Care Act passed by the House of Representatives three weeks ago, that is estimated to cost Connecticut…
Read MoreCT health prices higher than US average and growing faster
Health care prices in Connecticut are higher and rising more quickly than the US average, according to the Healthy Marketplace Index. The Index is a map-based tool from the Health Care Cost Institute that compares local prices for inpatient, outpatient and physician services across the US for 2012, 2013 and 2014. The researchers found significant…
Read MoreStudy raises concerns about ACO “savings” and gaming the system
A new study published in Health Affairs raises doubts about the effectiveness of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to both improve the quality of American health care while controlling costs. The study found very high physician turnover rates at a large Medicare ACO and that high cost patients were concentrated among a small minority of…
Read MoreDoctor compensation continues to grow, Northeastern physicians about in the middle, Canadians higher
US physicians average $294 thousand in compensation this year, up from $206K in 2011 according to Medscape’s 2017 Physician Compensation Report. Mirroring the US average, physician payment in the Northeast averaged $296K. Canadian physicians are the only nationality paid more than Americans, on average. Specialists make 46% more than primary care physicians, and their compensation…
Read MoreNew report finds adults in Medicaid expansion states like CT have better access to care, fewer financial barriers
A new report from the CDC provides the first analysis of the population-based impact of the Affordable Care Act. The analysis used data from the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a state-based ongoing survey of adult Americans about health risk behaviors, chronic conditions, health care access and use of preventive care. As for previous…
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