Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Washington State Pilot Project Encourages Medicaid Beneficiaries To Enroll In Employer-Sponsored Health Care Plans. A Washington state pilot project that reimburses Medicaid beneficiaries' premium costs if they participate in their employer-sponsored health plans could enroll 5,000 residents and reduce state costs by $3 million annually within two years, Medicaid officials project, the Seattle Times reports. [click link for full article] [Medicare / Medicaid / Tricare News From Medical News Today] 9:12:04 AM    comment [] Cola Is Associated With Bone Mineral Density Loss So May Up Osteoporosis Risk For Older Women. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, approximately 55 percent of Americans, mostly women, are at risk of developing osteoporosis, a disease of porous and brittle bones that causes higher susceptibility to bone fractures. [click link for full article] [Seniors / Aging News From Medical News Today] 9:11:29 AM    comment [] Basic thoughts on health insurance from economists. David Cutler and Richard Zeckhauser review “The anatomy of health insurance” in chapter 11 of the Handbook of Health Economics. The chapter provides an overview of the economics field’s insight regarding health insurance. The authors summarize the literature’s findings into 5 main lessons listed below: Risk spreading versus incentives: Health insurance involves a fundamental tradeoff between risk spreading and appropriate incentives. Increasing the generosity of insurance spreads risk more broadly but also leads to increased losses because individuals chose more care (moral hazard) and providers supply more care (principal-agent problems). Integration of Insurance and provision: Medical care is unlike other insurance markets in that insurers are often involved in the provision of the good in addition to insuring its cost. The integration of insurance and provision, intended to align incentives has increased over time. Managed care, where the functions are united, is an extreme version. Under it, doctors have dual loyalties, to the insurer as well as the patient. Competition and consumer identity: When consumer identity affects costs, competition is a mixed blessing. Allowing individuals to choose among competing health insurance plans can allocate people to appropriate plans and provide incentives for efficient provision. But it can also bing with it adverse selection–the tendency of the sick to prefer the most generous plans. Adverse selection induces people to enroll in less generous plans so they can be in a healthier pool, and gives plans incentives to distort their offerings to be less generous with care for the sick. Information and long-term insurance: More information about individual risk levels allows for more efficient pricing of risk, but portends a welfare loss from incomplete insurance contracts. Health insurance and health: The primary purpose of health insurance and delivery is to improve health. Unfortunately, conclusive results are not in on which insurance and provision arrangements do this most effectively. [Healthcare Economist] 9:10:48 AM    comment [] Federal Agencies Collected $1.47B In Fraud From Government Health Insurance Programs In FY 2005, Report Indicates. The Department of Justice and the HHS Office of Inspector General in a report issued this week announced that their joint Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program -- which attempts to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in federal health care programs -- will collect $1.47 billion from criminal or civil cases brought during fiscal year 2005, The Hill reports. [click link for full article] [Health News from Medical News Today] 9:09:46 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Norman G. DeLisle, Jr.. Last update: 12/18/2006; 8:35:28 AM.