 | |
| |
| |
|
The Kaiser Permanente hyped website was down system wide for hours over three days which kept about 10.2 million patients from communicating with the giant and vice versa. This was revealed by the San Francisco Business times. The HMO, as usual, does not tell what went wrong.
The average premium for Obamacare now is a staggering $408. This is a year over year 9% increase. The free loaders pay only an average of $113 per month. The administration shows this figure as to prove the expensive insurance is affordable. It is not.
The US consumer of health care realizes the fallacy of Obamacare and if they can not get the needed subsidy they will take limited coverage plans and risk being fined. The amount of short term plans has risen in 2014 fairly dramatically on e-Health.
The administration is nearing a milestone it could not fail to hit. They reduced the number of people expected to sign up for Obamacare by millions and are now happy that they hit their target. Originally they forecasted 21 million signups for 2016. They then realized the idiocy of their forecast and reduced it to 13 million and then again to 10 million. They have on the last day of signups 9 million in heathcare.gov and another 2 million from the sate exchanges.
The GOP is having a problem. They want spending cuts but federal health costs are expected to go to $936 billion which means a $544 billion shortfall.
Anthem insured sicker people than they thought they would and therefore had a flat year. They had a boost in revenue from Medicaid business and self insured folk not from the exchange business. Their Obamacare business was down 6.6%. They foresee another decrease in enrollment in 2016.
The feds have suspended enrollment in Cigna Medicare Advantage due to widespread and systemic failures that prevented patients from accessing health care. They screwed up on grievances as well as its covered drugs. They are to purchased by Anthem.
California is paying private Medicaid plans hundreds of million of dollars to offset the costs of hepatitis C drugs.
Chicago enrollees in Land of Lincoln Health got a surprise when the insurer dumped the University of Chicago Medical Center after the signups had started. This is due to an impasse in negotiations for rates. Obamacare does not preclude the move but ethics do. The insurer is obviously no ethical.
There has been a severe problem with a French drug trial. A drug was given orally to healthy volunteers by a hospital as part of a phase 1 trial for a manufacturer. Six of the volunteer men ages 28 to 49 have sever brain damage and at least one is brain dead. The drug was to help with mood problems. There were 128 people given the drug and an equal number given the placebo.
The British junior physicians hurt the NHS with their first strike and there is now some communications toward settlement of the dispute. The physicians have therefore postponed their second scheduled strike so that talks can continue. If nothing happens there will be several more stoppages. Top
A Mount Sinai physician was accused initially by a patient of ejaculating on her while she was a patient in the ED and under sedation. The hospital and the DA are investigation and the physician has been temporarily relieved of seeing patients during the investigation. The physician has been arrested. When the patient was asked to comment she said "Sorry, nothing happened"
A resident physician in Miami was plastered over the news for unprofessional behavior. She is Dr. Anjali Ramkissoon, aged 30, who was shown accosting an Uber driver and just being a spoiled brat. She has been suspended from her fourth year residency at Jackson Health System as well as having her Uber account taken away. She need rehabilitation.
The NYT has an article stating that physicians who get sued are likely to get sued again. They say that 1% of all the physicians account for 32% of all paid malpractice claims. Neurosurgeons and orthopedists were about two times as likely to have a paid claim as internists and pediatricians were 30% less likely to be sued than the internist. They go on to say that 94% of physicians have no claims.
In yet another poll that shows the discontent of physicians the 10th Urology Times poll of over 300 physicians showed they have problems with declining reimbursement (89%), and preauthorization (84%) as well as quality reporting (86%). They are working harder for less money and more administrative nonsense. About half said they would no longer take the recertification exam when they reached 60 years of age. Top
It's not only in medicine but law as well. A California attorney has been fined $250 for telling opposing counsel it wasn't becoming of a woman or an attorney to raise her voice during a deposition. What he said was true but in this PC world it was interpreted as sexist. He got a fine, a physician would have had his occupation taken away. Top
DISCLAIMER: Although this
article is updated periodically, it reflects the author's point of view at the
time of publication. Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice. Readers
should consult with their own legal counsel before acting on any of the
information presented.