Overbuilt, overstaffed, top heavy, hospitals ripe for cuts
Before this year’s cuts, Indiana hospitals had added 12,000 jobs over the past six years, even as private employers across Indiana, collectively, added no net new workers.
Government Health Care
Articles
Pressure mounts to fix health insurance exchanges
The pressure is on for the federal government and states running their own health insurance exchanges to get the systems up and running after overloaded websites and jammed phone lines frustrated consumers for a second day.
HEIGHT: New patients could overload the system
We all agree that something needs to be done for our challenged health care system. But is the new health care law what we need? Will this help those who are poor receive health care they need?
Enrollment opens in Indiana on federal health exchange
Opening day for the federal exchange was filled with extensive delays and technical problems. Federal officials attributed the slowdown to the surprisingly high volume of interest in the exchange on its first day of operation.
Pence pleads for end to medical device tax
Republican Gov. Mike Pence wrote a letter Monday urging members of the U.S. Senate to vote to repeal the medical device tax that is helping to finance Obamacare. But the Senate on Monday night voted not to repeal the tax, with all 54 Democrats voting to keep it.
Shutdown orders issued as Congress misses deadline
For the first time in nearly two decades, the federal government staggered into a partial shutdown Monday at midnight after congressional Republicans demanded changes in the nation's health care law and President Barack Obama and Democrats refused.
Anthem prez: Expect ‘crickets chirping’ on Oct. 1
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield President Rob Hillman expects a slow start to the Obamacare exchanges, with fewer than one-third of uninsured people buying coverage there.
Want health reform? Change these 6 things all at once
Meaningful health reform has proved so difficult because it requires simultaneous change across a massive system. Here’s a post-Obamacare plan to do exactly that.
Government edges closer to shutdown over Obamacare
About 800,000 federal workers could be forced off the job after midnight if Congress can’t cut an eleventh hour deal on the budget, complicated by the GOP’s attempt to delay Obamacare.
Indiana prepares to roll out online health exchange
More than 500,000 Indiana residents without health insurance will be able to start buying it Tuesday under the Affordable Care Act.
Insurance rates set for Indiana, other states under exchanges
With new health insurance markets launching next week, the Obama administration is unveiling premiums for 36 states, including Indiana, where the federal government is taking the lead to cover uninsured residents.
Hey IU, someone has to pay for those health care jobs
The IU researchers, as have many before them, approach health care jobs as if every one of them is an unmixed blessing to the Indiana economy. Employers and workers could have easily told them that’s not the case.
State officials explain extension for Healthy Indiana Plan
Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Debra Minott took questions on the Healthy Indiana Plan two weeks after the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed off on a one-year extension and some sizable changes to the program, including a new limit on earnings.
Top 10 blogs for the business of health care
I follow these blogs to keep up on health care financing. Tell me what else I should be reading.
Analyst foresees managed care growth in 2014
Major health insurers like WellPoint Inc. are in line for another year of growth, as the health care overhaul implements key elements in its push to cover millions of uninsured people.
Anthem to omit some big hospitals from exchange network
Most of Indianapolis’ major hospitals and physician practices will not be available through Anthem’s exchange plan, but instead will be working with a health plan run by Indianapolis-based MDwise Inc.
Indiana University shifting 50 jobs to temp agency
The move is partly being made to avoid having to add those workers to the IU health insurance plan as required by the federal health care overhaul.
Analysis: Obamacare exchanges will push Anthem’s premiums lower
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana expects the average premiums it charges on the health insurance exchanges being created by Obamacare to be about $60 per year less for each of its health plan members than they would have been without the law.
Hospitals aren’t bad guys; they’re just business guys
Even in the face of alarmingly high hospital prices, no one should conclude that hospitals are the bad guys in the health care system. Hospital executives are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing as the business leaders of their institutions.
Ouch! Indy hospitals charging employers three times more than Medicare
A new study found that Indianapolis-area hospitals are charging patients insured by their employers 264 percent more for outpatient services than the federal Medicare program pays for the exact same services at the same hospitals.