Los Angeles Times Reports, Obamacare Subsidies On Track To Cost Billions This Year

(via Los Angeles Times)

So, about all those subsidies for health insurance that fueled approximately 8 million sign-ups for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. They are on track to cost us billions of dollars this year, a new federal report indicates.

Nearly nine in 10 Americans who bought healthcare coverage on the federal government’s healthcare marketplaces received government assistance to offset their premiums.

Read more

The Medical Establishment Took The Treasury’s Keys

According to Uwe E. Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton, about half a century ago, organized medicine and the hospital industry in this country struck a deal with Congress.

In retrospect, it was as audacious as it was incredible: Congress was asked to surrender to these industries the keys to the United States Treasury.

Read more

Stephen Schimpff Wants To Spend More Than 10 Minutes With His Patients

You call for an appointment and are told it will be about 20 days.

You arrive on time only to sit in the apt named waiting room for 40 minutes.

You see your primary care doctor (PCP).

You start to explain why you came in.

Read more

Pay Kevin MD Like A French Doctor (Or Get Your Numbers Straight Before Blaming Doc Salaries For Overspending.)

Whenever new physician salary data is released, reporters and policy experts often compare doctor salaries in the United States to those of other countries: most notably, France. But Kevin Pho isn’t pleased.

That’s because because, practically on cue, Vox’s Sarah Kliff — regarded by thought leaders an excellent healthcare writer, is “uncharacteristically” lazy in framing physician salaries through a biased lens.

She writes, “Primary care doctors in the United States, do tend to earn a lot more than their counterparts abroad. One 2011 study, which looked at doctor salaries from 2008, found that the average primary care doctor in France earns about $95,000, compared to the $186,000 that physicians net in the United States.”

Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

May 15, 2014

Obamacare Exchanges Burn Taxpayer Dollars By The Truckload

Remember Cash for Clunkers? That program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles with better gas mileage.

But because a lot of the vehicles eligible for the rebate would have sold anyway, taxpayers ended up paying about $24,000 per additional car sale that these incentives produced.

And it looks like Obamacare is in a fierce race to beat Cash for Clunkers to become the poster child for mismanagement of federal taxpayer resources:

Read more

Harvard Policy Researcher Says Obamacare Will Inadvertently Break Fee-For-Service Model

In Washington, Amitabh Chandra stood before a roomful of economists, policy makers and health care experts earlier this month. As director of Health Policy Research at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, he closed a presentation about the slowdown in health care spending over the last decade by citing an article in The New York Times.

“Changes in the way doctors and hospitals are paid — how much and by whom — have begun to curb the steady rise of health care costs in the New York region,” the article declared. “Costs are still going up faster than overall inflation, but the annual rate of increase is the lowest in 21 years.”

Read more

5 Common Misconceptions About Healthcare Spending

Let’s talk about healthcare misconceptions. Here’s some corrections to common misconceptions about who pays for healthcare. Read more

Five MORE Failures of the American Healthcare System

Second part in a series.

Supporting direct care is imperative to American healthcare success. It’s about empowering patient and doctor, and yes, taking back control from healthcare’s crony oligarchs: insurance & government. The fact is, if we use insurance for primary care — things like a physical, blood panels, monthly prescriptions, a splint for a sprained ankle — the only buyer and seller is the insurance company and/or the government. Why? It’s because we’re looking at a subsidized system involving the general public.

Read more

Five Failures of the American Healthcare System

First part in a series.

We started practicing direct care because we knew there were major problems with American Healthcare. So what’s wrong with our profit-maximizing system. For starters, here’s five startling realities of our healthcare model:

Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

February 13, 2014

Healthcare Spending On The Decline

Healthcare Spending On The Decline

When we got to this article, we crossed our fingers that it wasn’t some slanted link bait. The New York Times is actually reporting that healthcare is already slowing down growth on the U.S. economy. Thank you, Obamacare! Healthcare has been a sector known to help the economy recover from recession. And now, it’s lagging behind. Some facts to consider courtesy of the Times:

Read more