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Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt has a lot of explaining to do. And a lot of listening. In recent months, the agency issued draft rules carrying out what's intended to bring transformational change to the way Medicare pays physicians. It also rolled out a slew of experiments with payment and delivery reforms, including its first mandatory demonstration programs. In the process, Slavitt has become highly visible on social media and in person, and he has developed a reputation for unusual candor in conversations with healthcare leaders and clinicians. Slavitt spoke last week with Modern Healthcare managing editor Gregg Blesch. This...

Only days after Judy Hanttula came home from the hospital after surgery last November, her doctor's office called with bad news: Records showed that instead of traditional Medicare, she had a private Medicare Advantage plan, and her doctor and hospital were not in its network. Neither the plan nor Medicare now would cover her medical costs. She owed $16,622. -- snip -- Hanttula said she ignored all mail from insurers because she had chosen traditional Medicare. "I felt like I had insured myself properly with Medicare," she said. "So I quit paying attention to the mail."

The good people of Colorado must be smoking something these days. That’s the only explanation for the decision by 156,000 of the state’s more than 3 million registered voters to endorse a November ballot initiative that would create a statewide single-payer health care system. Patients in single-payer systems elsewhere must withstand low-quality care and long wait times. To fund all that failure, they pay sky-high taxes. If Colorado’s voters approve this single-payer measure at the polls this fall, they’ll experience these realities firsthand. Single-payer systems control costs by using government power to ration care. In Canada, where I grew up,...

The big rate increases announced last week for health insurance policies sold by California’s version of the federal health reform are the latest evidence that the Affordable Care Act, despite its name, cannot do much to tame the rise of health care costs.

Just a headline now

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually in Georgia on uncompensated care for the uninsured. The uninsured may not have coverage but they do get sick; one way or another, we all pay for their care in a way that is terribly inefficient. • Money should follow people. It is important to support the institutions and providers that make up Georgia’s safety net, but solutions should be people-centered, not institutioncentered. • Innovation requires flexibility and choices. Micromanaging every last detail is a recipe for the status quo. The accompanying table shows the most recent data on the average enrollment...

Humana, one of the largest health care providers in the country, has made the decision to eventually leave the vast majority of the Obamacare markets. Out of the 23 Obamacare co-ops that were established only seven remain, virtually all of them under threat of folding by the end of this year.

<p>Monthly premiums in California's health insurance exchange will increase by more than 13 percent on average next year after two major insurers requested large rate increases, officials said Tuesday.</p>

It's not just United Health, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and boutique commercial insurers initially praised by the president as a model for his massive healthcare experiment. The trend of health insurance providers losing money on Obamacare's disproportionately older and sicker (and therefore more expensive to cover) enrollees is a nationwide problem that's driving companies out of the individual market and forcing rates upward. Fewer choices, higher costs, and disappointing enrollment statistics. Via John Sexton, here's a Politico report on the 'Affordable' Care Act's unstable, unsustainable status quo: For the insurance companies doing business in the state–the ones issuing policies to those 600,000 people–Obamacare has turned into a financial sinkhole....

Leading from behind is a business concept where leaders steer their organizations much as shepherds guiding their flocks, from behind. It is contingent on a basic reality, “One can lead from behind only if one knows what lies ahead and what it will take to get there.” President Obama’s foreign policy style has been described as “leading from behind” particularly in the Middle East. Another view of Obama’s style: “A foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision.” One look at the current Middle East shows how that is working out. Shifting from foreign to domestic affairs, how has the President’s...

Senior Obama administration officials took a series of decisions beginning in late 2013 that ranged from the reckless to the illegal in an effort to keep insurers participating in health insurance exchanges. A report issued last week jointly by the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees explores how the administration came to unlawfully funnel $7 billion in unappropriated money to insurers through a single ObamaCare program.

The nation’s health care tab this year is expected to surpass $10,000 per person for the first time, the government said Wednesday. The new peak means the Obama administration will pass the problem of high health care costs on to its successor. The report from number crunchers at the Department of Health and Human Services projects that health care spending will grow at a faster rate than the national economy over the coming decade. That squeezes the ability of federal and state governments, not to mention employers and average citizens, to pay. Growth is projected to average 5.8 percent from...

Illinois moved Tuesday to take control of Land of Lincoln Health to begin an orderly shutdown of the insurance company, meaning about 49,000 people will lose their health coverage in the coming months. The state said it will allow policyholders to buy coverage from a different insurer before their Land of Lincoln plans are terminated, but it's unclear when the policies will lapse. "It's a bad day for the marketplace in Illinois and our consumers," said Jason Montrie, president and interim CEO of Chicago-based Land of Lincoln. "This is the end."

President Obama is urging Congress to revisit a public option for Obamacare in parts of the country where coverage is limited in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Snip) “Some parts of the country have struggled with limited insurance market competition for many years, which is one reason that, in the original debate over health reform, Congress considered and I supported including a Medicare-like public plan,” Obama wrote. “Now based on experience with the [Affordable Care Act], I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country

President Obama joined the chorus of Democrats calling for the creation of a government run health insurance program as Obamacare is facing growing problems. In an article published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the president called for Congress to revisit the "public option" for Obamacare in areas where few insurers offer coverage. "Some parts of the country have struggled with limited insurance market competition for many years, which is one reason that, in the original debate over health reform, Congress considered and I supported including a Medicare-like public plan," Obama wrote in the piece. A public...

Private practice medicine in the United States is rapidly going away. In the past few years, the percentage of doctors who own their own businesses has plummeted. The middle class, the supposed beneficiaries of Obamacare, can't afford their deductibles and are avoiding necessary treatments and tests because of costs, leading doctors to have to care for them at more advanced stages of disease. Doctors (and nurses), the highest trained and most knowledgeable providers of patient care, are mostly data input vehicles for the massive electronic medical records systems. And the amount of money that has been shoveled into the great...

He voted for the bill before he was (sort of) against it. Today much of the mainstream media jumped for joy when announcing that the Democrat Senate nominee in Indiana, Baron Hill, would step aside in favor of former Senator Evan Bayh to once again run for his old seat. Missing in all the happiness was any mention that Bayh, whose Senate career was rather undistinguished except for being the crucial 60th vote that made Obamacare possible, subsequently voiced extreme dissatisfaction with that same bill. Perhaps Bayh and the MSM hope that Bayh's radically shifting attitude would be sent down...

As NewsBuster Geoffrey Dickens has noted, Ben Affleck appeared on yesterday evening's edition of Hardball. And while it's true that the actor/director/Dem activist offered a generally innocuous analysis, he did manage to engage in a bit of religious bigotry. Affleck's foul foray arose in the course of his discussion of the way the various Republican candidates have dealt with the issue of evolution and creationism. Talk turned to the former governor of Arkansas. BEN AFFLECK: I think Huckabee actually framed his position in a much less dramatic way than had been made out. Which was he said it could...

Possible Trump VP pick Gen. Michael Flynn on abortion: "Woman have to be able to choose." #ThisWeek

Sanders gushes, saying the health care proposals “will save lives.” Hillary Clinton reaffirmed her support on Saturday for creating a “public option” within Obamacare and allowing people to enroll in Medicare at age 55. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also called for a substantial increase in funding in medical clinics that serve low-income Americans, fully embracing a proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). While Clinton has long supported the creation of new government-run insurance options and reiterated that support several times this year, Saturday’s statement comes three days before she is scheduled to make her first joint campaign appearance...