The Commonwealth Fund, ever the apologist for the reform law, issues a brief suggesting that recent premium increases are not due to the reform law but to health cost rises. Neither explanation is good news.
PriceWaterhouseCooper opines on important health industry trends and concerns for 2014 in a report from its Health Research Institute.
A new Dartmouth Atlas report focuses on variation in pediatric care.
A great deal of health care expense is associated patients who are incapable of making decisions about their care. A New England Journal of Medicine perspective discusses how to handle these patients.
A Kaiser Family Foundation brief finds that Medicare patients continue to have generally good access to physicians.
A PriceWaterhouseCooper Report finds that funding for life sciences companies seems to be lagging that for other industries, with potential positive and negative implications.
A new brief from the Center for Studying Health System Change examines the results of early experience with a reference pricing model for expensive health care treatments.
A paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research looks at the slowdown in health care spending, identifying three primary factors, but the authors are pessimistic about the enduring nature of reduced expenditures.
Research published in Health Affairs examines the characteristics of Medicaid emergency room users and use.
A Kaiser Family Foundation report summarizes Medicare Advantage offerings for 2014, noting trends in availability, benefits and cost.