President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform initiative is predicated on eight basic guiding principles that are, on their face, essentially impossible to argue against.
Reimbursement
Healthcare reform and the profit motive
Any list of the most important medical technology advances of the past 25 years, or almost any one of those years, would include, very near the top, the development of advanced diagnostic imaging modalities – CT, MRI, PET. Access to precise and detailed images of internal organs and systems has provided an incredible improvement in diagnostic capability, therapy selection and procedure planning and guidance. Capabilities that were unthinkable only a few decades ago are viewed as routine today.
The CardioNet blues
While Congress focuses on high-stakes health care reform issues that will likely affect every health system stakeholder over the next few years, and may radically change the reimbursement environment and market potential of emerging device and diagnostic technologies, business as usual goes on — for better or for worse — for individual companies.
One of the companies experiencing “for worse” is CardioNet (NASDAQ:BEAT), the once high-flying Pennsylvania-based cardiac monitoring company touted by many as the best pure play in wireless patient monitoring and diagnostics.
Show me the savings! Four steps to real healthcare reform
In my last post, I argued that the policy alternatives under discussion in the Congressional healthcare reform political debate don’t really address the goals of quality improvement and cost control.
So why should we believe reform will actually produce the promised improvements? Why will quality get better? Where will the savings come from?
The devil is in the details
President Barack Obama is on the stump talking up his goals, Congressional drafts of legislation are beginning to see the light of day, the usual suspects are crying foul and the initial wave of euphoria about healthcare reform is beginning to subside.
Despite the professed national unity on the need for significant new policy directions, the terms of a health reform battle are beginning to emerge. We could be seeing a graphic example of Washington policy-making as usual – or we could be looking at real change now. Only time will tell.
Is “industry-style” healthcare reform real?
Early in May, the Obama administration’s health reform initiative received a major boost — or at least a public relations coup — when representatives of six major healthcare system stakeholder organizations convened at the White House and promised to work to deliver $1.7 trillion in healthcare cost reductions over the next 10 years.
CMS administrator – Does anybody want this job?
President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform initiative, after what many had seen as a badly compromised and possibly debilitating start when the nomination of Tom Daschle as Dept. of Health and Human Services secretary crashed and burned in early February, seems to be moving forward smoothly and inexorably toward a Congressional vote before Labor Day. Daschle had seemed to be an essential lynch pin to the reform effort, combining a policy perspective remarkably close to that of the President with an undisputed ability to work closely and constructively with the Congress. But Obama recovered from the initial setback with a canny succession of key policy personnel appointments, and never skipped a beat.
Healthcare players seek a seat at the table
The Obama administration, and advocates of major healthcare system reform, received a major boost today in the form of a joint letter (PDF) to President Barack Obama from the leaders of the American Medical Assn., the American Hospital Assn., America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Service Employees Industrial Union, promising support
Medicare 2010: Where is the innovative new technology?
As is the case every year, publication of CMS’ Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was eagerly anticipated by salivating policy wonks (mea culpa), anxious hospital managers and the people who sell to them. Add the current national economic crisis, with its impacts on capital availability and revenues, and the stakes seemed especially high this year. A major Medicare hospital reimbursement squeeze could have a chilling effect on overall hospital margins and purchasing power, and a consequent effect throughout the life sciences — diagnostics, therapeutic devices, hospital supplies and equipment.
Is “Obama style” healthcare reform real?
Congress last week approved President Barack Obama’s budget, and in doing so eased the path for passage of healthcare reform, one of his administration’s principal domestic initiatives. The Senate Finance Committee is getting down to the hard work of actually writing the healthcare reform bill that will, possibly by early summer, be the focal document for debate on the issue. Building on a series of roundtable discussions with key stakeholders and months of concentrated staff effort, the committee met in executive session April 29 to begin the process of selecting among alternative ideas.
Jumping the gun?
President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform effort is, at least so far, characterized by a focus on an inclusionary process aimed at consensus building. The private sector organizations that have the knowledge and experience to understand healthcare system problems and inefficiencies, and that will need to be involved in implementing solutions, are being engaged and heard (PDF) by those who are crafting the detailed legislative proposals we’ll be talking about and debating later this year. It is — at least so far — all very civilized and high-minded, and hard to criticize.
