an excellent post recently appeared in the HealthBeat Blog–

http://www.healthbeatblog.org/

The author concludes that the high cost of medicine is greatly enhanced by the fact that consumers who spend their own money and make their own healthcare decisions are the ones who end up costing the system much more in the long run.

By 2017, consumers and taxpayers will spend more than $4 trillion on health care, accounting for one of every $5 spent, the federal government projects.

The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation — will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. But other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011.

With the aging population, the federal government will be picking up the tab for a growing share of the nation’s medical expenses. Overall, federal and state governments accounted for about 46 percent of health expenditures in 2006. That percentage will increase to 49 percent over the next decade.

copy and paste this link for the full article:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5569497.html

A proposal to raise caps in medical malpractice lawsuits is scheduled to be heard by the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Monday.

Senate Bill 164, sponsored by Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver and Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, would raise the caps for non-economic damages (such as pain and suffering) in medical malpractice cases to match those in other types of damage cases. The current cap in medical malpractice cases for non-economic losses is $300,000; in general liability cases it’s $366,000, but that figure is scheduled to be inflation-adjusted this year.

for full article, copy and paste this link:
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/02/11/daily71.html

In a startlingly revealing article, a New England Journal of Medicine writer confronts the myths about the quality of medical care in this country. He states that “cost-effective care is squeezed out, resources are increasingly allocated in response to profit opportunities rather than medical need, many attainable efficiencies are not achieved, unnecessary medical care is provided for profit, administrative expenses are high, and enormous sums are squandered in efforts to game the system.”

copy and paste this link for full article:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/6/549?query=TOC

Hospitals participating in a Medicare pay-for-performance demonstration project have been successful in lowering costs while reducing patient mortality and improving in other quality measures, officials said on Thursday, CQ HealthBeat reports. The project, a partnership between CMS and the hospital consortium Premier, involves 250 hospitals, which report on 30 clinical quality measures.

Hospitals participating in the project reported that the median hospital cost per patient decreased by $1,000 during the first three years, while the median mortality rate decreased by 1.87%. If all hospitals in the nation were to achieve the same cost and mortality improvements, hospital costs could be reduced by more than $4.5 billion annually, and about 70,000 deaths per year could be prevented, according to CMS.

for full report, copy and paste this link
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=50199

Medical malpractice can occur whenever a patient is in the care of a healthcare professional. This can involve the failure or delay in properly diagnosing or treating an illness or injury so that it causes new or aggravated injuries.

Highly experienced and knowledgeable medical malpractice attorneys help thousands of people every year who have been the victim of medical malpractice or medical negligence.

Many people do not realize how frequently medical malpractice occurs. In fact, thousands of people every year are either injured from medical malpractice or medical negligence, or die from injuries or illnesses that could have been prevented or treated with proper medical care.

for full story, copy and paste this link:
www.bestsyndication.com/?q=012508_houston_medical_malpractice.htm

The sad state of health care is one of the leading issues in the presidential campaigns. Our system is a national disgrace. It costs twice as much per person as other industrialized countries, yet 47 million Americans have no health insurance, and our health lags behind most industrialized nations. And, except for those who pay extra for a boutique provider, service is often poor.

We need major transformation of our system. But without consensus on three fundamental requirements, political haggling over the matter will get us nowhere.

copy and paste this link:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/348335_healthcare23.html

“Our healthcare system’s too expensive, too dehumanized, too technically complicated and not sufficiently patient centered,” said Dr. Timothy Lane, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and former chief of Moses Cone Memorial Hospital’s internal medicine program. “We’re in enormous disarray.”

He described two poles of thought in healthcare delivery, leaving little doubt which one he favored.

One philosophical school views healthcare as a capitalistic good to be traded on the open market, Lane suggested, while the other describes it as a social good, guaranteed to all. Capitalist healthcare is based on the premise that when consumers have sufficient knowledge they are able to make rational decisions in weighing price against quality in the selection of options. Because of the urgency of personal healthcare needs and the complexity of medical practices, he proposed, consumers rarely have enough information to make timely and intelligent decisions about their healthcare

copy anhttp://www.yesweekly.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=3249&TM=52953d paste this link for full story:

We’ve all heard the argument made by the insurance companies and medical industry: so-called tort “reform” leads to better healthcare. This is the line that the insurance and medical industries have been pushing in states all across the country.

Well, guess what? It ain’t so.

The truth is that patients in states with arbitrary restrictions on their access to the legal accountability system are more likely to have worse overall healthcare.

Using the non-profit Commonwealth Fund’s independent ranking of state health system performance, access, and quality, Texas Watch compared states that restrict patient access to the courthouse with those that do not. In every category, it is clear that patients in states that restrict patients’ legal rights fare worse than those in states that allow patients to hold wrongdoers accountable.

copy and paste this link for access:
www.texaswatch.org/TW/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=HealthRankingsTortReform

Several private health insurers, such as Aetna and WellPoint, have moved to end reimbursements to hospitals for treatment that results from serious medical errors, the Wall Street Journal reports. The insurers also will not allow their members to be billed for hospital errors.

Last year, CMS announced a rule under which Medicare after September no longer will reimburse hospitals for the treatment of bed sores, falls and six other preventable conditions that occur in the facilities. CMS next year plans to add to the list hospital-acquired infections, blood clots in legs and lungs, and pneumonia contracted from a ventilator.

In hospital contracts that require renewal, Aetna has begun to include a provision that ends reimbursements for 28 “never events” outlined by the National Quality Forum. In Virginia, WellPoint has begun to test a similar policy that ends reimbursements for four never events, and the company plans to expand the policy to Georgia, New England and New York in the near future. UnitedHealth Group and Cigna have considered policies similar to the CMS rule.

copy and paste link for full article:

www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=49829