Health Care Costs

Disclosure on health care costs can help reduce those costs. That is not always true. Read more »

As the political battles – and stalemate – over the Affordable Care Act continues, employers may find themselves with the worst of all worlds. The portions of the ACA that create the greatest burdens on employers, such as the mandates, taxes and administrative obligations under the ACA stay in place. At the same time, uncertainty in the individual markets creates blowback that hurts employers in a number of ways. Read more »

An increasing number of healthcare services in the U.S. are being delivered in less resource-intensive settings: from hospitals to freestanding surgery and imaging centers, from long term care facilities to patients’ homes, and from physicians’ offices to computer screens. However, this trend also threatens bricks-and-mortar facilities built to meet the traditional, resource-intensive approach. What is behind this trend and what will it mean? Read more »

A recent article in The Economist magazine discussed various theories and principles of “human capital”. As stated in the article, “human capital refers to the abilities and qualities of people that make them productive” and that while knowledge is the most important form of human capital, it is not the only form of human capital. […] Read more »

As Republicans in Congress continue their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, they keep on looking for new ways to separate portions of the insurance markets’ risk pools into different segments. For example, proposals from both the House of Representatives and the Senate would have made it easier for insurance companies to […] Read more »

Senate Republican leaders have released a revised version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA II), their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. BCRA II is identical to the original BCRA, with a handful of key differences: •   BRCA II retains several of the new taxes levied under ACA (most notably the additional […] Read more »

As the debate in Washington rages on over the efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) there is a fundamental truth that is being ignored: there are no provisions of the current ACA replacement bills – either from the House (the American Health Care Act, or AHCA) or the Senate (the Better […] Read more »

On June 22, the Senate Republicans released the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (“BCRA”), their version of a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The bill repeals some provisions of the ACA. However, in many instances the bill retains the ACA framework, but dramatically reshapes provisions of the ACA. Here are […] Read more »

In an age when technology disrupts one industry after another, it may be helpful to spend some time thinking about technology and healthcare. Specifically, let’s focus on telemedicine – including telehealth (using electronic communication media to provide clinical services) and remote patient monitoring (using technology to monitor patients with certain chronic conditions). Telemedicine holds great […] Read more »