Call Us - 1.800.672.4916
We invite you to explore the links below to find out more about commercial litigation, intellectual property, mesothelioma cancer, pharmaceutical (drug) liability, product liability, toxic exposures and wrongful death!
|
Syndicate
Forbes Life: Health
Health news and reports from Forbes.com
Updated: 1 hour 12 min ago
The 15 Minute Physical: Dr. Oz Showcases Power Of Electronic Health Records
At a taping of the Dr. Oz Show on Saturday, Dr. Mehmet Oz and 75 laptop-wielding medical students entered clinical information on 1,000 patients into an electronic health record, courtesy of Practice Fusion, a provider of free web-based EHRs. The location was 's School of Medicine. Combing for indicators of heart disease and diabetes, they ...
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
What Should Congress Do after the Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare?
There's been a bit of a flap in the media this week about what House Republicans are planning to do regarding health care reform once the Supreme Court rules on Obamacare. But the back-and-forth leaves unanswered an important question: given all of the possible SCOTUS scenarios, what should Congress do to optimize the outcome for people with a stake in a functioning health-care system? Let's examine the possibilities.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Obamacare Activists Prep to be 'Either Celebratory or Agitational' about Supreme Court Decision
BuzzFeed has obtained a three-page memo from Health Care for America Now, an umbrella group run by labor unions and MoveOn.org. The memo details how the organization and other White House allies plan to adopt alternate messages, depending on whether or not the Affordable Care Act is upheld by the Supreme Court. "Note that many of these [resources] can be lined up now, without any additional information about the timing of the specifics of the decision," the activists write. It's a free country, of course. But the memo makes for strange reading.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Medicare Advantage Reform: Detaching Pay from Performance
Medicare Advantage (MA) is the "private option" within Medicare. Private health insurers are paid a fixed monthly fee to provide at least the same minimum health benefits to their enrollees as "traditional" fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare, but they also have the ability to offer coordinated care, disease management, phone consultations, and other services that have the ...
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Are House Republicans Caving in on Repealing Obamacare? Doubtful.
Politico is reporting that House Republicans are preparing for the possibility that the Supreme Court upholds the law by drafting new legislation. "When the court rules, we'll be ready," House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) told the House Republican Conference on Wednesday. But what's surprising about alleged GOP plans is that they involve preserving significant???and damaging???aspects of the Affordable Care Act, for what appear to be political reasons. I'm not convinced that the story is accurate.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
On Heels Of Record Health IT Funding, Castlight Health Recruits Former Medco Executive
Founded only four years ago, Castlight is fast establishing itself as the leader in a field rarely associated with health care: cost transparency. The , Calif.-based company offers employees of self-insured companies the ability to compare medical procedures based on price and quality, which vary widely within the same geographical area. Earlier this month, it ...
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Drug Companies Are Testing Health Technology
Drug companies are dipping into health technology???or at least skimming the surface. is a new player at this week's 2.0 matchmaking conference which seeks to pair health technology start-ups with deep-pocketed partners. The pharma company, which is a sponsor, says it is "interested in companies pursuing innovation/opportunities related to the digital workflow of health care ...
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
How Obamacare Tackled the Pitfalls of Employer-Sponsored Insurance Reform
Last weekend, I explained why the discriminatory tax treatment of employer-sponsored insurance is the original sin behind America's exceedingly expensive health-care system. I also described why reforming this tax break is politically difficult, because lots of industry stakeholders have an economic interest in the status quo. Today, I'll leave those political considerations aside, and engage the most credible policy critiques of ESI tax reform. The good news is that the authors of Obamacare's "Cadillac tax" did most of the legwork for us.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
How Employer-Sponsored Insurance Drives Up Health Costs
A new study in Health Affairs is attracting attention for its depiction of how powerful hospitals are extracting "steep payment increases" from insurers. But what the study really tells us is how much the exceptional cost of American health insurance is caused by our system's original sin: the fact that, due to a quirk in the federal tax code, most of us don't buy insurance for ourselves, but instead have it bought on our behalf by our employers.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Will Buying Health Insurance Across State Lines Reduce Costs?
During the debate over Obamacare, Republicans have consistently promoted an alternative approach that involved allowing individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines. Interstate insurance purchasing was the second item in the health care section of the GOP's 2010 "Pledge to America," right after tort reform. It's also a part of Mitt Romney's plan to replace Obamacare. It makes intuitive sense: after all, we can buy most other things across state lines; why not health insurance? Credible skeptics, however, say that health insurance is different, and that interstate insurance won't reduce costs. Let's explore their arguments.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Is This Patient Privacy Crusader Doing More Harm Than Good?
If the electronic health records industry has a nemesis, it's Deborah Peel, the founder of Patient Privacy Rights. At a time when doctors and hospitals are digitizing their paper medical records as mandated by the government, Peel, a psychiatrist, has been the most vocal agitator against loss of patient privacy. In Peel's world, malefic forces ...
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Massachusetts Institutes Health-Care Price Controls. Is America Next?
Under Governor Deval Patrick, Massachusetts has tried a couple of methods for limiting the government's exposure to rising health-care costs. First, Patrick forced insurers to stop raising premiums, which led to a predictable train wreck, as insurers started hemorrhaging cash. When a state appeals board overturned Patrick's decree, he shifted gears, and began going after the prices charged by hospitals and doctors. On Friday, the Massachusetts House unveiled new legislation toward that end. And progressive health-care observers around the country are taking notes.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Should the FDA Approve More Drugs after Phase II? A Response to Matthew Herper
Last Friday, Forbes health care editor Matt Herper and I sat down to talk about my proposal, which I detailed in a paper for the Manhattan Institute, to encourage the FDA to approve more drugs after mid-stage phase II testing, using a process called "conditional approval." (You can read my proposal, in three parts, here.) Matt put forth some very perceptive critiques of the idea, which I respond to in today's dispatch.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Quinnipiac Poll: Swing-State Voters Think the Supreme Court Should Overturn All of Obamacare
Quinnipiac University is out with a new poll of voters in three key swing states???Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The headline is that Romney slightly leads Obama in Florida and Ohio, whereas Obama is winning Pennsylvania. But the poll also asked voters if they wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare, and in all three states, voters said "yes."
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Government Produces Slide Show to Help Sell Obamacare: 'Hello, My Name is XXX'
I'm sure you have few illusions about the partisan nature of today's Health and Human Services Department. Just in case, however, Buzzfeed has posted a copy of a 20-page HHS document that, according to the web site, was "circulated by [HHS] to allies" with the goal of "making the unpopular law more politically saleable."
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Forbes Midas List: The VCs Who Are Investing In Health IT
IT is gaining ground. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, venture capitalists invested $659 million in 91 deals in 2011, up 25.5% from $525 million in 71 deals the prior year. In the first quarter of 2012, health IT companies raised $102 million, a 75% increase over the same period last year. In contrast, biopharma investments ...
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Fortune 100 Survey: Employers Could Save $422 Billion by Dropping Health Coverage
The House Ways and Means Committee has released a new report that sheds light onto how Obamacare incentivizes companies to dump their workers onto the new law's subsidized exchanges. As I have written many times, there are fiscal reasons to be concerned about this problem. But employer-sponsored health insurance is one of the most problematic features of the U.S. health-care system, and Republicans who lash themselves to the employer-sponsored mast, for short-term political gain, will undermine long-term efforts at market-oriented reform.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Castlight Health Raises Record Amount For A Health IT Start-Up
Castlight announced today it raised $100 million in a Series D round, bringing the total amount raised to $181 million since its inception in 2008. New investors include T. Rowe Price, Redmile Group, two of the country's biggest mutual funds (unnamed), as well as previous investors. "This is a vehicle to something bigger," says Giovanni ...
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
How George W. Bush Would Have Replaced Obamacare
In January of 2007, George W. Bush was entering the final stretch of his two-term presidency. Bush, however, chose not to ride off simply into the sunset. Instead, he put forth a comprehensive plan to reform the private health insurance market. It's long-forgotten now, because Democrats had just regained control of Congress, and these newly-empowered legislators pronounced the Bush plan "dead on arrival." In many ways, though, the Bush proposal was impressive and credible. It would have expanded coverage while reducing the deficit. Should it serve as the starting point for replacing Obamacare?
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical
Milliman: Obamacare Even Raises Taxes on the Government
As you may know, the Affordable Care Act raises taxes on pretty much everyone, directly or indirectly, in order to fund its expansion of coverage for the uninsured. Most of these new taxes are unwise policy. But one Obamacare tax increase stands out for sheer boneheadedness: the law's tax on insurance premiums, a provision that will raise taxes paid by the government itself, and make insurance less affordable.
Categories: NEWS: Health and Medical