2017’s headline is the rapid transformation of the American health care system with disruptive hybrid private sector mergers, mega-hospital system mergers creating horizontally and vertically super-sized systems, and major capital expansion investment by academic medical centers to retain national and regional “anchor” supremacy. And the explanation by pundits of the various competing trajectories. My approach
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“About 8.8 million Americans enrolled in health coverage through Healthcare.gov, the Trump administration announced Thursday, a slight dip from last year after the Trump administration cut spending and outreach but far from a dramatic drop. Last year, about 9.2 million people signed up through Healthcare.gov, which serves more than 30 states. A dozen states run
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“Just like the health care vote, there were a small number of Republican senators who seemed like they might hold out. But unlike last time, Senate leadership managed to successfully cut deals with these senators to secure “yes” votes. …Collins was most concerned about the provision in the tax bill that would kill Obamacare’s individual
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“Some conservative health policy experts don’t think Congress and Trump have gone far enough. They fear scrapping the mandate but leaving many rules intact would prove disastrous, possibly setting in motion an inevitable “bailout” from Congress that would let Obamacare live to see another day. Conservative thinker Chris Jacobs, for instance, wrote in The Federalist
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Reflect on those numbers for a moment. Republicans have managed to make tax cuts less popular than Obamacare. It’s impressive. And yet last week, given an opportunity to tweak their bill before final passage, to make it something the American people might like a little better, the main change Republicans made was to lower the
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“With the bill finally headed to a vote this coming week, taxpayers are scrambling to determine whether the legislation renders them winners or losers. WINNERS PRESIDENT TRUMP AND HIS FAMILY. Numerous industries will benefit from the Republican tax overhaul, but perhaps none as dramatically as the industry where Mr. Trump earned his riches: commercial real
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When a physician prescribes medication I always ask if there is a generic and I watch carefully when a brand name drug becomes available generically, often changing a $50+ co-pay to $5 or less. But if we fill prescriptions on cruise control that is without asking the right questions, we can wind up with much
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