Thanks be given for our last Potpourri before Thanksgiving, a table spread with delectable bites of information on hospital readmissions and quality measure performance, health plan enrollment growth, health price…
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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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