General Accountability Office: "Early enrollee experiences with health savings accounts and eligible health plans." 1 The GAO found that: o HSA-eligible plans and traditional plans covered similar health care services, including preventive, diagnostic, maternity, surgical, and emergency room services and also used similar provider networks. o HSA-eligible plans had … [Read more...] about Answering Two Studies on Consumer-Directed Health Care
Answering Two Studies on Consumer-Directed Health Care
General Accountability Office: "Early enrollee experiences with health savings accounts and eligible health plans." 1 The GAO found that: o HSA-eligible plans and traditional plans covered similar health care services, including preventive, diagnostic, maternity, surgical, and emergency room services and also used similar provider networks. o HSA-eligible plans had … [Read more...] about Answering Two Studies on Consumer-Directed Health Care
Apples and Oranges
The Commonwealth Fund once again is making headlines with a new study that says people with individual health insurance policies pay more, get less, have higher deductibles, and are less happy with their coverage than those with job-based plans. This certainly would seem to undermine confidence in private health insurance. But America's Health Insurance Plans immediately countered that the … [Read more...] about Apples and Oranges
Debunking Medicare Myths
It seems that every opinion leader in the country has weighed in on the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. With November?s elections just around the corner, pundits and politicians are filling the airwaves with compelling sound bites on its successes and failures. With all these competing assertions, it?s time to distinguish myth from reality: MYTH NO. 1: The drug benefit is too … [Read more...] about Debunking Medicare Myths
Debunking Medicare Myths
It seems that every opinion leader in the country has weighed in on the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. With November?s elections just around the corner, pundits and politicians are filling the airwaves with compelling sound bites on its successes and failures. With all these competing assertions, it?s time to distinguish myth from reality: MYTH NO. 1: The drug benefit is too … [Read more...] about Debunking Medicare Myths
Patients, Doctors, and Governments
The National Health Service decided to do a survey of how well general practitioners in the U.K. are complying with pay-for-performance guidelines, and Health Affairs reports that the GPs surprised government authorities with a 91% compliance score. But it's not surprising if you believe in incentive economics: The docs received points for following the clinical guidelines, and each point earned a … [Read more...] about Patients, Doctors, and Governments
Vacation's Over
The Census Bureau's new report shows a steady uptick in the number of people without health insurance (46.6 million) and a steady decline in the percentage of people with job-based health insurance (down to 59.5% this year). With many employers priced out of the health insurance market and with an increasingly mobile workforce, it is vital that policy changes be made to give people more … [Read more...] about Vacation's Over
Filling the Doughnut Hole
Several million seniors soon will begin hitting the dreaded doughnut hole in their new Medicare prescription drug coverage -- a gap of up to $3,000 where their insurance stops. There already are calls for Congress to fill the gap or to completely change the drug program to make it look more like the rest of Medicare. Changing the program now would be a mistake since polls show that seniors … [Read more...] about Filling the Doughnut Hole