http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/5-hospitals-with-strong-finances-september22.html
Here are five hospitals and health systems with strong operational metrics and solid financial positions based on recent reports from Moody’s Investors Service, Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings.
Note: This is not an exhaustive list. Health system names were compiled from recent credit rating reports. Systems are listed in alphabetical order.
Remember The ‘Public Option’? Insurance Commissioner Wants To Try It In California
With major insurers retreating from the federal health law’s marketplaces, California’s insurance commissioner said he supports a public option at the state level that could bolster competition and potentially serve as a test for the controversial idea nationwide.
“I think we should strongly consider a public option in California,” Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said in a recent interview with California Healthline. “It will require a lot of careful thought and work, but I think it’s something that ought to be on the table because we continue to see this consolidation in an already consolidated health insurance market.”
Nationally, President Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats have revived the idea of the public option in response to insurers such as Aetna Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. pulling back from the individual insurance market and many consumers facing double-digit rate hikes.
The notion of a publicly run health plan competing against private insurers in government exchanges was hotly debated but ultimately dropped from the Affordable Care Act when it passed in 2010.
Health insurers have long opposed the idea, and other critics fear it would lead to a full government-run system
The area’s third-largest private-sector employer faces financial challenges that could lead to cuts in its local workforce of 7,800, observers say
https://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/the-real-focus-of-successful-leaders/
This week’s question is about what defines our ethics – “Is our ethics based on who we are or what we do?” Some people would argue that we have a persona, a manner, that is either ethical or not. Others would say that it is our decisions and actions that define how ethical we are, and therefore our ethicality changes from moment to moment.
Instead of trying to decide which perspective is right, we would be well advised to take our lead from Aristotle. He conveyed in his famous quote “we are what we repeatedly do” that our ethical persona and actions cannot be separated.
As we approach the election this fall, it seems like the news media report on little else. Unfortunately, too little news coverage addresses health care reform. This is ill-advised because there is still much to be done to improve the cost, quality, and access for patients within the US health care system. In this post, I will attempt to cover most of the major issues related to health care coverage that US consumers face.
In a previous piece I wrote for the JAMA Forum, just before the last presidential election, I discussed how health care reform is all about tradeoffs. For example, one way to make an insurance plans cheaper is to offer narrow networks (reducing access to high-cost services or allowing access only to physicians who agree to accept lower payments in return for the promise of higher volume). That’s a tradeoff. Community ratings and government regulation lead to improved access for some but fewer options for carriers (worse access). Weak mandates allow for more freedom in deciding whether to purchase insurance but lead to increased rates for others and fewer carriers participating.
We should not lose sight of what has improved. An additional 20 million US residents who lacked health coverage are now insured. Spending has slowed to below what was predicted. But there is still much work to do. Calling for blanket repeal of the ACA and a return to the status quo is not an improvement. But failing to recognize shortcomings in reform and working to ameliorate them would be a failure as well.
