Medicare

Congressman John Conyers has reintroduced his bill for a single payer national health program: H.R. 676, "Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act." Some perspective is warranted. Read More »

Medical billing paperwork and insurance-related red tape cost the U.S. economy approximately $471 billion in 2012, 80 percent of which is waste due to the inefficiency of the nation’s complex, multi-payer way of financing care, a group of researchers say. The researchers – physicians and health policy researchers with ties to the University of California, San Francisco, the City University of New York School of Public Health, and Harvard Medical School – note that a simplified, single-payer system of financing health care similar to Canada’s or the U.S. Medicare program could result in savings of approximately $375 billion annually, or more than $1 trillion over three years.

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Right-wingers like Charles Krauthammer don't "think anybody should buy it"—and too many Democrats actually don't want to talk about it—but that doesn't mean advocates for a single-payer or 'Medicare for All' healthcare system aren't responding to news about rising insurance premiums for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with renewed demands. Just weeks away from national elections, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made financial and political news late Monday by announcing the average premiums for plans under the ACA (aka Obamacare) will rise significantly for many consumers in 2017...

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Throughout 2013, 18 acute-care hospitals closed their doors, and there are many others — such as Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., Vidant Pungo Hospital in Belhaven, N.C., Lake Shore Health Care Center in Irving, N.Y., and Williamson (W.Va.) Memorial Hospital, to name a few — that could follow suit this year. Read More »

In the health care industry, 2013 will be a huge year: the perfect storm of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the fiscal cliff and long-term deficit reduction, consumer dissatisfaction, and higher costs mean it’s a year when results matter.

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You can lead doctors to EHR systems — but you can't make them attest.  A poll of nearly 2,000 physicians, in fact, reveals that 55 percent do not plan to attest for meaningful use Stage 2 in 2015...

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