The "fiscal cliff" deficits, and debt are very much in the news these days. A Congressional Budget Office report indicates how much of our spending difficulty is attributable to health…
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A substantial amount of Medicare and overall health spending is incurred in the last few months of patients' lives. Much of this spending is due to intensive care that obviously…
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Everyone is concerned about health spending growth, the primary cause of which is unit price increases. So why are obvious methods to reduce unit price of services, like substituting less-expensive…
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Research reported in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that a hospital pay-for-performance program in part of England may have led to reduced mortality for three conditions, with pneumonia…
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Thank God the election is finally over, but our Potpourri is never-ending, this week bringing you the latest on why comparative effectiveness research results don't translate to practice, innovations to…
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A brief from the Urban Institute examines the premium support proposal to reform Medicare, suggesting instead that Medicare Advantage be changed. This ideologically driven report ignores basic economics and the…
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Another consultant's report on the American health system, this one from KPMG and focusing on the supposed transformation from a volume-based system to one founded on value. While leaders of…
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Another paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, this one examining consumer behavior in the context of the Medicare Part D exchange and finding that beneficiary inertia seems to…
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The Dartmouth Atlas project has made its name by studying regional variations in health care utilization, spending and quality, with a core finding that substantial variation exists which does not…
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About this Blog
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.