Newest Health Insurance Customers Are Generally Happy; Republicans who love ACA; +

Newest Health Insurance Customers Are Generally Happy 

Turns Out, Republicans Love Obamacare

 Uninsured Rate Down Five Percentage Points Following ACA Open Enrollment

 Race Is On to Profit From Rise of Urgent Care

Obamacare's next threat: A September surprise

Solutions to childhood trauma 
 
NYT: Share Your Experience With the Affordable Care Act

Open notes for mental health patients? What the Therapist Thinks About You, via @nytimes nyti.ms/VAEQuC

Putting The Home In A Nursing Home
  
Adults With Serious Mental Illnesses Face 80% Unemployment
  
ACAView: New Findings On The Effect Of Coverage Expansion Since January 2014

Hospital Observation Care Can Be Costly For Medicare Patients
 The Mystery of the Missing $1,000 Per Person: Can Medicare’s Spending Slowdown Continue? 

    

Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School

Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School - See more at: http://familiesusa.org/blog/2014/07/expanding-medicaid-helps-children-succeed-school?utm_content=bufferd363a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.68NjzXf0.dpuf Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School

Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School - See more at: http://familiesusa.org/blog/2014/07/expanding-medicaid-helps-children-succeed-school?utm_content=bufferd363a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.68NjzXf0.dpuf

Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School - See more at: http://familiesusa.org/blog/2014/07/expanding-medicaid-helps-children-succeed-school?utm_content=bufferd363a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.68NjzXf0.dpuf

Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School - See more at: http://familiesusa.org/blog/2014/07/expanding-medicaid-helps-children-succeed-school?utm_content=bufferd363a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.68NjzXf0.dpuf

Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School - See more at: http://familiesusa.org/blog/2014/07/expanding-medicaid-helps-children-succeed-school?utm_content=bufferd363a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.68NjzXf0.dpuf

Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School - See more at: http://familiesusa.org/blog/2014/07/expanding-medicaid-helps-children-succeed-school?utm_content=bufferd363a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.68NjzXf0.dpuf

 Expanding Medicaid Helps Children Succeed in School


Healthy aging into your 80s and beyond

After free contraception program, Colorado teen birth rate plummets

ACO  reduces hospital Use  

 

 

Big Data In Health: A New Era For Research And Patient Care

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/33/7/1110.extract

 

What big data could do for health care

 

 

 

Can Medicare’s Spending Slowdown Continue? +

The Mystery of the Missing $1,000 Per Person: Can Medicare’s Spending Slowdown Continue?
 
Exploring a Culture of Health: Detecting Signals of Wellbeing

Presentations: Health care basics for small businesses

Why the Political Heat on the ACA Is Cooling

HHS announces the availability of $100 million in Affordable Care Act funding to expand access to primary care through new community health centers

Consumers in All States Benefiting from Reforms to Individual Insurance Market

Insuring Your Health: Some Plans Skew Drug Benefits To Drive Away Patients, Advocates Warn 

Courts Consider Challenges To Health Law Subsidies 

Medicare Mulls Expanding Telehealth To Wellness, Behavioral Visits 

LEGAL GLITCH IN WORDING OF ACA COULD CAUSE MILLIONS TO LOSE COVERAGE –
Obama awaits another court ruling that could deal blow to health law

FLORIDA BECOMES FIRST STATE TO OFFER MEDICAID PLAN FOR PATIENTS WITH SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESSES –
Florida Shifts Medicaid Mental Health Strategy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Battles Over 2015 Insurance Rates; More on Hobby Lobby; Special Enrollment +

Health Law Backers Brace For New Battles Over 2015 Insurance Rates 

Hobby Lobby: Sex, Lies, and Craft Supplies  

10 GIFS To Help Explain Special Enrollment

The Health Care Waiting Game 
  
 Sign-Ups Not the Only Way to Gauge Health Law's Success

Restaurant-specific insurance exchange debuts in D.C.

Long Waits For Medical Attention Are Normal In Many Parts Of U.S.

Free birth control is emerging standard for women

Will Divestment from Employment-Based Health Insurance Save Employers Money? The Case of State and Local Governments

Tips to help you enroll in health coverage

Private Medical Insurance – the Good, the Bad and the Uncovered

Most Say It’s Appropriate For Employers To Offer Wellness Programs, But Not To Tie Premiums To Participation Or Health Outcomes

Four Strategies for Improving Programs that Help Low-Income Medicare Beneficiaries with Health Care Costs

 

 

Clergy Protest SCOTUS by handing out condoms at HOBBY LOBBY

CLERGY PROTEST SCOTUS BY HANDING OUT CONDOMS AT HOBBY LOBBY

THE MOST PARTISAN SUPREME COURT JUSTICE OF ALL


What Would Happen If Health Care in Your State Improved?

Minority Enrollment in Health Insurance Marketplaces During the First Open Enrollment Period

Covered California Outlines Additional Initiatives Tailored to Boost Latino Enrollment

NEJM: Health Care Coverage under the Affordable Care Act — A Progress Report

This article suggests that 20 million may have benefited from the ACA enrollment.  That number seems quite high, but given the publication and the authors, worth considering. 

20 PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT DIRECTLY FROM COMPANIES ARE NEWLY INSURED –
Five million stick to private health insurance

Insurance Costs Before and After the ACA: Experts Weigh In 

Four Strategies for Improving Programs that Help Low-Income Medicare Beneficiaries with Health Care Costs  

Most Say It’s Appropriate For Employers To Offer Wellness Programs, But Not To Tie Premiums To Participation Or Health Outcomes 

 

 

Advice needed on projects dealing with ACA enrollment; Dual eligibles; Pay for Performance

I need advice on 3 projects that I am involved in: 1) ACA enrollment; 2) Dual Eligibles; 3) Pay for Performance.  The advice consists of project suggestions, where to get help, persons to consult, and any other forms of assistance that you are willing to provide. 

1)  ACA Enrollment 

As many of you know, I have been working for Organizing for Action, Obama's grassroots organization, on several aspects of the ACA.  I welcome ideas on how to recruit more volunteers to help and enlist the participation of organizations in assisting in a variety of ways, including churches, health service provider organizations, businesses, and others.  I am particularly in need of Spanish speaking volunteers who are bilingual and have basic computer skills.  .

Some of the specific areas where I would appreciate advice on are the following:

a) What are the best ways to reach Latinos such as door to door, locations such as laundromats, hair and nail salons.

Use Spanish speaking volunteers who have basic computer literacy e.g., high school or college students. 

What are the best ways to reach young invincibles between the ages of 18-35. 

2) Dual eligibles

What are some of the key questions that need to be addressed re duals? 

What methods can be used to integrate payment for Medicare and Medicaid? One strategy is to make payments to the same managed care organizations?  What are other options?  How do these options compare?  

Here are a few suggestions I have received. 

Focus on those with Long Term Care needs as they are the most expensive.

Use a PACE type of program

I have several references if you would like to see.

What is the state of the art so far?  What are key articles on this?  Who are the top folks to discuss this with?   

3) Pay for performance  (P4P)

What directions should be pursued?
Which providers?  It has been suggested that we focus on managed care, hospitals, dialysis centers, and home health agencies as these have the best set of measurements. 
It has also been suggested that focus on outcome measures, and include patient ratings of outcomes.

Another suggestion is to examine what England has done on this and other European countries that have adopted such measures into their DRG systems.  

What is the state of the art so far?  What are key articles on this?  Who are the top folks to discuss this with? 

Again, I have several references if you would like to see.

I welcome collaborators on any of these topics.  
 

The 8 Best Lines From Ginsburg's Dissent + more

Today's blog includes articles on 1) a review of the Hobby Lobby decisions, 2) the ACA accounts for economic growth and access to preventive services, 3) consequences of State Medicaid decisions, 4) keeping enrollees, and 5) 2015 premiums.  


In the next blog issue I will be asking for advice on 3 projects I am engaged in. 
The 8 Best Lines From Ginsburg's Dissent on the Hobby Lobby Contraception Decision

Ginsburg says it very well.  Very disturbing decision on many levels.  

Kaiser chart shows how the justices answered the four key questions in the case. http://kaiserf.am/1qaQDuD


Hobby Lobby Ruling Creates Uncertainty About Contraceptive Mandate 

Democrats Campaign Against High Court After Hobby Lobby Ruling

Our Economic Growth Is a Mystery. Obamacare Is the Reason. 

Affordable Care Act helps 76 million Americans with private coverage access free preventive services

 

White House Report: Missed Opportunities and the Consequences of State Decisions Not to Expand Medicaid 

 

New Guidance on Keeping Marketplace Enrollees Covered for 2015 

 

 

Briefing: Rates of Change: Putting 2015 Insurance Premiums into Context

 

 

Key briefing points: 

• When determining 2015 health insurance premiums, the largest drivers are changes in expectations about risk pool composition, transitional policy for non-ACA compliant plans, reduction of reinsurance program funds and medical trends, said Cori Uccello. Other factors such as provider networks, market competition, benefit packages, and administrative costs will also play a role, she said.
• Premium rates between 2008 and 2010 increased an average of 10 percent a year, according to a study that Jon Gruber cited. He also noted that rates were highly variable across states, and that, prior to ACA implementation, there was very little rate transparency. Study available here: http://ow.ly/yENrA
• Market rules changed significantly after ACA implementation and pricing insurance products became more complicated, Elizabeth Hall stated. Insurers will have more concrete information about demographics in 2015, but obtaining a complete picture of medical claims and pharmaceutical data for purposes of setting premiums will take several years. Pricing in 2014 was based off of educated guesses, she said.
• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will now review all rate increases unless the state already has an effective rate review program, David Cusano said. Requirements for effective rate review programs include receiving sufficient data about rate increases, considering at least 15 factors in rate regulation, making rate filings readily available, and providing a mechanism for public comments. As of April 2014, 45 States and the District of Columbia have effective rate review programs, he said. 

I’m Covered Stories: A Healthy Respect for a ‘Complicated’ Family