Thanks to Peggy Salvatore of Health System Ed for hosting this week’s Health Wonk Review – great graphics coupled with quick synopses make for a readable and entertaining edition indeed.
One don’t-miss is Dr Bradley Flansbaum’s piece on his history with the pharma industry. Pretty compelling stuff and especially enlightening for those of us without direct experience similar to Dr F’s.
My prediction is the ACA will collapse on it’s own. The numbers don’t add up and insurers are seeing the writing on the wall and are bailing quickly ie.. United Healthcare and others. Just like you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan, and premiums are going to go down. This was an entire farce and the primary architect, forget his name at the moment, openly admitted they were counting on the stupidity of the American people to buy into the lies. While there are some pretty nice elements to the legislation ie.. insurance portability and prior condition no longer a barrier to get coverage, the rest of it well…. covering the indigent in a non ER environment should have been downstream at the State level and an increase in their Medicaid federal funds. Much simpler, the poor are covered, known system in place(Medicaid) and State to State these dollars can be best spent. Just an opinion.
thanks for the comment Greg. Interestingly, the number of health plans participating in the various Exchanges is up slightly year over year. The Blues in particular seem to be long-term committed, as is Aetna.