March 2010 - The Health Care Blog

Could It Be That the System (Gasp) Works?

By ROBERT WACHTER Heading into the final weekend of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, who could have guessed that in a year that brought us Death Panels, Pickup Trucks, “You Lie”, The Cornhusker Compromise, Bart Stupak (boy, that must have been... Read More...

Published Sat, Mar 20 2010 7:04 AM by The Health Care Blog

Vote Yes

By DAVID KIBBE & BRIAN KLEPPER One of us was at a local diner yesterday, when a good friend and health plan broker walked up to say hello. This guy delivers premium increases every day to employers, and understands how... Read More...

Published Fri, Mar 19 2010 7:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat?

By Matthew Holt Sometime pretty soon Nancy Pelosi’s team will have figured out if they have the votes and will be moving what’s basically the Senate bill onto the House floor. Those of you who remember late 2003 may remember... Read More...

Published Fri, Mar 19 2010 1:22 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Policy/Politics, Matthew Holt, Policy

The Paradox of Technology in Healthcare

By THOMAS GOETZ Thomas Goetz is the author of "The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Age of Personalized Medicine." The executive editor at Wired Magazine, you can follow him on Twitter twitter.com/tgoetz. One of the.....

Published Thu, Mar 18 2010 9:12 AM by The Health Care Blog

Do the "Wrong" Thing

ROBERT LASZEWSKI As the Democrats make their final push to pass their health care bill many of them, and most notably the President, are arguing that it should be passed because it is the “right thing to do whatever the... Read More...

Published Wed, Mar 17 2010 1:13 PM by The Health Care Blog

The Top Ten Immediate Benefits Americans Will Receive When Health Care Reform Passes

By MAGGIE MAHAR Yesterday, the Democratic Caucus of the House listed the provisions of the health reform bill that will take effect “as soon as health care passes,” The legislation would: Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all...

Published Wed, Mar 17 2010 10:48 AM by The Health Care Blog

Price controls do not work

By PAUL LEVY If there is anything about economics that has been proven over and over, it is that price controls do not work. The unintended consequences are usually worse than the problem that led to the solution in the... Read More...

Published Wed, Mar 17 2010 7:41 AM by The Health Care Blog

George Clooney Was Onto Something

By JESSIE GRUMAN In the Oscar-nominated movie “Up in the Air,” Ryan Bingham (aka George Clooney), travels around the country firing employees for company bosses who don’t have the stomach to do it themselves -– the ones who prefer to... Read More...

Published Wed, Mar 17 2010 5:15 AM by The Health Care Blog

Andy Wiesenthal, Kaiser Permanente

By Matthew Holt Those of you with really long memories may remember that Kaiser had a little kerfuffle with a guy named Justen Deal. As part of that incident, I did a rather unorthodox interview with Andy Wiesenthal from The... Read More...

Published Wed, Mar 17 2010 1:43 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Electronic Medical Records, Matthew Holt, Health Plans, Consumers

Dear Mr President, Medicare Stinks

By ROB LAMBERTS Dear Mr. President: The physicians and management in our office had a discussion this morning about the upcoming audits physicians are facing from CMS. I had to wait for my blood pressure to get out of dangerous... Read More...

Published Tue, Mar 16 2010 11:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Medicare, Physicians, Insurance

Jonathan Bush, quickly

By Matthew Holt Jonathan Bush gave me a quick interview at HIMSS ten days ago. We had a chat about what the recent restatement of accounting was all about (stock off about 12%), and last night they released numbers that... Read More...

Published Tue, Mar 16 2010 1:49 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt

WebMD--Nan Forte explains Health Exchange

By Matthew Holt WebMD introduced a new series of Health 2.0 style forums last week called Health Exchange. Not everyone was thrilled--in fact John Moore gave it a right padding over at Chilmark mostly because of usability issues. I got... Read More.....

Published Tue, Mar 16 2010 1:13 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Consumers

A Web 2.0 Interview with Miguel Cabrer, CEO of Medting

By Denise Silber Miguel Cabrer founder of MEDTING, a global site for the exchange of medical information and images, will be a panelist at Health 2.0 Europe in Paris. Formerly CIO of Hospital Son Llatzer, the first digital hospital in... Read More...

Published Tue, Mar 16 2010 1:08 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Health 2.0, Web/Tech

Microsoft at HIMSS

By Matthew Holt I'm still catching up with my HIMSS interviews. This is Chris Sullivan and Mike Raymer from Microsoft who are talking about the evolution of the Amalga product—the business intelligence engine—and the current state of HealthVault....

Published Tue, Mar 16 2010 1:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Electronic Medical Records, Matthew Holt, Consumers

Aneesh Chopra on txting in Haiti

By Matthew Holt Here's a quick video I took at the end of Aneesh Chopra's (the Federal CTO) talk at HIMSS. It’s a remarkable story of the role of SMS, tools and crowdsourcing in aiding in a disaster zone. A... Read More...

Published Mon, Mar 15 2010 9:38 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt