Latest California Healthline Stories
Health Policy and Winnie-the-Pooh
BALTIMORE — How health care is like A Bear of Very Little Brain:
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.”
— A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“That is what we are here to do — think of another way of doing things,” said Richard Gottfried, chair of the New York State Assembly Committee on Health and moderator of a well-attended panel on payment reform Tuesday at the National Academy for State Health Policy’s annual conference.
How Wal-Mart May Have Just Changed the Game on Health Care
Wal-Mart last week announced a new bundled payment plan with six leading hospitals, which was immediately overshadowed by the presidential race. But the groundbreaking plan — the latest major health care development in the private sector in recent weeks — holds tremendous potential to change U.S. health care.
Educator Praises Health Policy Officials for ‘Noble Work’
BALTIMORE — “I would argue that what you face in health care is very similar to what we face in education — revenues are down and needs are up,” Freeman Hrabowski III said in his keynote address Monday at the opening of the National Academy for State Health Policy’s 25th annual conference.
Quoting poets William Carlos Williams and Maya Angelou and evoking the legacies of Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr., Hrabowski told state policy wonks “the work you do is noble, but the situations we face are not easy. It comes down to how you respond. Aristotle said ‘excellence is never an accident.’ I think we need to remember that as we move forward,” Hrabowski said.
Hrabowski — president of University of Maryland, Baltimore County and one of Time Magazine’s choices of the 100 most influential people in the world — did his homework before addressing the NASHP crowd.
AARP Study: California Faces Soaring Demand for Long-Term Care
California faces soaring demand for long-term care services, with a senior population expected to surge 90% by 2032, according to a new study by AARP.
The number of seniors age 85 and over — those most likely to need long-term care — will grow by 78%, significantly faster than the U.S. average, the report said.
Most people in that demographic category live below 250% of the federal poverty line and will probably qualify for need-based long-term care and other forms of public support, AARP researchers predicted.
Health 2.0: Searching for Meaning in Health Data
At the 6th annual Health 2.0 Conference, speakers stressed the importance of making health care data meaningful, accessible and actionable, while adhering to regulatory requirements, supporting evidence-based medicine and satisfying providers, patients and payers.
California Making Progress in Digital Transition
California is making progress in its transition to electronic health records, state officials said Thursday in an update on the state’s eHealth Initiative.
“Electronic health records are really changing the quality of care individuals are receiving,” said Linette Scott, chief medical information officer for the Department of Health Care Services.
So far, California has allocated $775 million in federal funds to hospitals, doctors and other health care providers to support health information exchange technology, Scott said in a conference call. “It demonstrates a change in the way health care is delivered,” she said.
Obama, Romney Health Care Differences Detailed in Study
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would dismantle most of the federal Affordable Care Act and make sweeping changes to Medicare and Medicaid, according to a study released Wednesday by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research.
The side-by-side analysis of health care proposals in the 2012 presidential contest found stark policy differences between the former Massachusetts governor and President Barack Obama, said Shana Alex Lavarreda, the report’s co-author and director of UCLA’s Health Insurance Studies Program.
“I think the choice is very clear,” she said. “It wasn’t hard to find major distinctions.”
How Should Exchange Handle Vision, Dental Coverage?
Federal guidelines provide some direction, but state insurance exchanges are largely on their own when deciding details of offering vision and dental coverage under the Affordable Care Act. We asked stakeholders and consumer advocates what California should do.
Study: Pediatric Vision, Dental ACA Coverage In Limbo
California has yet to resolve several key questions about how insurers will provide pediatric dental and vision benefits under the federal Affordable Care Act, according to a new study from the California Health Benefits Review Program.
Recent state legislation helps define essential health benefits for children’s dental and vision care, “but does not clarify which ages are ‘pediatric,’ and thus eligible to use these benefits,” according to the study from CHBRP, a University of California initiative that analyzes public health issues for the state Legislature.
It’s also unclear how benefits will be handled when families purchase separate health coverage and stand-alone dental coverage, the report concludes. “These questions will need to be addressed at some point in the future in order to assist both the regulators and the carriers providing for this EHB to comply with ACA requirements,” it said.
California Hospitals Expanding Their Palliative Care Offerings To Improve Care, Reduce Costs
Parag Bharadwaj of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Judy Citko of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California, Suzi Johnson of Sharp HospiceCare and Steven Oppenheim of the Institute of Palliative Medicine spoke with California Healthline about the growth of palliative care services in California.