Cartoon – Productivity Surge
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Cartoon – You are not being fired
CBO: Hospitals’ future finances depend on increasing productivity
- A new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has recognized that changes in laws and regulations, prompted primarily by the ACA–notablyreduced Medicare payment updates and expanded insurance coverage–can be expected to significantly impact hospitals’ future finances.
- To help provide a sense of the impacts, the CBO’s working paper predicted hospitals’ profit margins, and the share of hospitals that could lose money in 2025 under several different scenarios.
- The researchers noted that they provided a wide range of estimates due to “substantial uncertainty” around the predictions and how hospitals will respond to the pressures of the federal healthcare law.
Aetna faces probe over ‘politically motivated’ Obamacare exit
- A group of senators is seeking answers from Aetna about its abrupt decision to leave the ACA marketplaces following the DOJ’s challenge to the company’s proposed $37 billion merger with Humana.
- The letter came Thursday from Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).
- While other insurers have also scaled back their ACA participation, the probe into Aetna comes in response to a letter from Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini in which the company is perceived to have directly threatened the government that it would leave the exchanges if the merger was not approved.
Aetna’s Bertolini counters accusation of power play against DOJ
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-bertolini-senators-20160912-story.html
- Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini has responded to a letter from a group of senators who accused the company last week of exiting the majority of its ACA markets as a ploy against the federal government for challenging Aetna’s proposed merger with Humana.
- Bertolini dismissed the senators’ arguments as”unfounded accusations,” the Hartford Courant reported.
- Aetna spokesman T.J. Crawford told the Courant the company had not received a response from the senators.
Corporate Executives Are Making Way More Money Than Anybody Reports
There are two methods for measuring compensation. One appears everywhere. The other is correct.
Through stock buybacks of this magnitude, executives effectively participate in the looting of the corporations they run.
Employers shift costs with 12% surge in deductibles
http://www.healthcaredive.com/news/employers-shift-costs-with-12-surge-in-deductibles/426292/
- The average deductible for employer-sponsored health plans has risen 12% this year to $1,478 annually, and has exceeded $2,000 at small businesses, according to a new Kaiser/HRET survey, which looked at more than 1,900 small and large employers to analyze the trends around employer-sponsored health insurance.
- The rapid increase in deductibles, which puts more healthcare costs on the shoulders of employees, has been a significant factor in helping employer-sponsored plans slow down their premium increases to “historically low rates,” the study found. It noted that since 2011 the average family premium has gone up just 20%, compared to 31% from 2006 and 2011, and 63% from 2001 to 2006.
- The analysis illustrates the shift between plan types, showing 29% of all employees are now in high-deductible plans compared to 20% in 2014, while those employees in higher cost PPO plans have gone down from 58% in 2014 to 48% in 2016.
Cartoon – Impossible Dreams
Cartoon – CFO Spending Time in our Lab
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Cartoon – Still Accepting New Patients
