March 2010 - The Health Care Blog

Health Reform: A Class Act

By THOMAS GREANEY, St. Louis University School of Law A few headlines from coverage of the passage of the health reform bill: Winners, Losers in the House Healthcare Bill (Reuters) Health Reform: What’s in it for you? (US News) Already... Read More.....

Published Wed, Mar 24 2010 12:45 PM by The Health Care Blog

The Enthusiasm Gap

By ROBERT REICH I had dinner the other night with a Democratic pollster who told me Dems are heading toward next fall’s mid-term elections with a serious enthusiasm gap: The Republican base is fired up. The Dem base is packing... Read More...

Published Tue, Mar 02 2010 6:00 PM by The Health Care Blog

The Tale of the Fancy Sea Creatures and the Pipes

By ROB LAMBERTS Once upon a time there was a land on the ocean. The people lived off of the food from the ocean and were very happy. But as they grew bigger, they had a problem: they made a... Read More...

Published Sun, Mar 21 2010 12:37 PM by The Health Care Blog

"I Am Not Bound To Win. But I Am Bound To Be True."

By MAGGIE MAHAR So many said it would never happen. But now, on Sunday, March 21, 2010, it appears that reformers have the votes. Rep. Bart Stupak, the leader of the anti-abortion hold-outs, has announced that he will vote "yes."... Read More...

Published Sun, Mar 21 2010 6:28 PM by 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

Crowd Sourcing Comes Through Again

By PAUL LEVY I have written below about the incredible power of crowd sourcing, using the reach and scope of social networking on the Internet to solve a complex problem. Here's a play-by-play about a difficult question. It demonstrates how... Read...

Published Sun, Mar 14 2010 10:19 AM by The Health Care Blog

A little HIMSS housekeeping

By Matthew Holt Today till Weds I'll be at HIMSS in Atlanta. You can see me at the Bloggers panel at 3pmMonday, or more importantly at the talk Jane Sarasohn-Kahn & I are giving on Health 2.0 & Participatory Medicine... Read More...

Published Mon, Mar 01 2010 4:07 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Matthew Holt

What Good are Health Insurers?

By BILL KRAMER As the health reform effort moves into the final stages, everyone seems to be taking a whack at health insurers. Some of the insurers’ wounds are self-inflicted, such as WellPoint’s announcement of 39% premium increase for individual.....

Published Tue, Mar 09 2010 2:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

A Shout-out to our sponsors

THCB would not exist without the support of our generous sponsors. So we'd like to give a shout to our friends at Eliza, our latest corporate sponsors. "Who says nerds can't talk to people? We use technology to engage people... Read More...

Published Mon, Mar 08 2010 2:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Confused, Conflicted, Clueless and Cranky

By HUMPHREY TAYLOR Humphrey Taylor is Chairman of The Harris Poll. Prior to joining Harris, Taylor worked in Britain where he conducted all of the private political polling for the Conservative Party and was a close adviser to Prime Minister... Read More...

Published Mon, Mar 01 2010 11:15 AM by The Health Care Blog

Epocrates--reference present and EMR future

By Matthew Holt I met with Bob Quinn the CTO and Geoff Rutledge, the CMO, of Epocrates at HIMSS last week. The company has a big footprint in mobile (and web) reference content for physicians. The big news is that... Read More...

Published Thu, Mar 11 2010 1:03 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Electronic Medical Records, Matthew Holt

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

The Vote is 6pm EST

By Matthew Holt Just a quick note that the vote on the Health care reform bill is at 6pm EST tonight. It looks like the Stupak 6 (the anti-abortion Dems) have been persuaded that a Yes vote will be OK... Read More...

Published Sun, Mar 21 2010 9:13 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Policy/Politics, Policy

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

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