Deloitte: Tax Issues in Health Care Reform
Safeway Inc. has received a great deal attention around its health care plan and apparent cost savings. The essence of the plan is putting employees and their dependents directly at financial risk for improvements in certain key health-related behaviors.
The Wall Street Journal article summarized some research results regarding the potential cost savings of prevention and wellness efforts, particularly for persons with chronic diseases. The overall conclusion is that not much money is likely to be saved by such methods, primarily because the cost of these programs when applied to a large population tends to outweigh the health care cost savings which eventually accrue.
One of the controversial provisions in some health care reform proposals has been creation of a public plan, often analogized to Medicare, which would be an option offered alongside private insurance plans.
A pair of recent announcements by the American Medical Association pique one’s curiousity.
Illumina has announced that for $48,000 a consumer can have their entire DNA sequenced