Stuart Altman, celebrity economist in health care, speaking here at the Estes Park Conference on Maui, says that a declining economy will kick health care way up the political agenda. He believes that the middle class are more concerned about health care than their paychecks. Sounds odd given that people won’t be able to pay for their coverage if they’re out of a job (and still have too many assets to qualify for Medicaid). Yet, his point speaks to the uncertainty and panic that can hit anyone when faced with the possibility of catastrophic health care costs. For many, you can always get another job; but getting health care coverage may be another matter altogether.
WHCB: “Are Incremental Assumptions About the Future of Health Care Plausible?”
January 29, 2008 — Fred FortinDavid Lawrence, former CEO, and chairman of the boards of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, speaking yesterday at the Estes Park Conference in Wailea, Maui asks: Are incremental assumptions about the future of health care plausible? This question is especially acute when it comes to planning a hospital which could take anywhere from five to ten years to build. Lawrence lays out a number of a propositions that you would have to assume if you were building a hospital today and believed in incremental change in health care.
See my entire post over at the World Health Care Blog.
WHCB: “Where Do Hospitals Begin . . . and End?”
January 27, 2008 — Fred FortinWailea, Maui - I’m attending an Estes Park Institute conference listening to a short presentation by Leland Kaiser, a Senior Fellow at the Institute, talk about “evidenced-based environmental design” a new, emerging perspective when it comes to hospitals and their healing potential. Besides hospital design being functional and aesthetic, he argues that hospitals have to become “transformative and healing”; the hospital, in and of itself, should be evocative of the individual’s health potential.
See my entire post over at the World Health Care Blog.
WHCB: “Collecting the Many Futures of Global Health Care”
January 25, 2008 — Fred FortinIn my last post, I ran through a number of predictions about the future of U.S. health care distilled from the increasing panoply of reports crossing my desk (or my computer screen!). In looking through similar reports on the future of global health care it occurred to me put out an invitation to World Health Care Blog readers to share your thoughts — or those of others you respect — on the future of global health care. What condition will the world’s health be in by the end of the next decade and what changes to health care delivery will there be ? Let’s see if our little exercise in the web’s power to aggregate collective intelligence can flush out some interesting thinking. To help things along, here’s a few observations on the future of global health gleaned from various sources.
See my complete post over at the World Health Care Blog.
WHCB: “Do Presidential Candidates Really Represent America’s Views on Health Care?”
January 23, 2008 — Fred FortinWell, I know I keep harping on this point, but let’s review: In answer to the following question asked in an ongoing Kaiser Health Tracking Poll,
“Thinking about all the candidates for president in 2008, regardless of political party or who you intend to vote for, which candidate BEST represents your views on health care?”
Americans responded with “Don’t know/Can’t name/None”
- 60 percent — March 2007
- 59 percent — June 2007
- 59 percent — August 2007
- 50 percent –October 2007
- 53 percent – December 2007
See my entire post over at the World Health Care Blog.
Health Care Transparency and Technological Due Process
January 18, 2008 — Fred FortinFrom Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society comes a marvelous and cogent video featuring Danielle Citron of the University of Maryland Law School discussing how technology and computer automation are altering due process and a new model embracing automation without sacrificing due process. Her examples focus on health care and the need for transparency at the level of computer code — as well as other recommendations — for large automated systems. She emphasizes the unappreciated power of programmers to implement questionable interpretations of policies, as well as the absence of appropriate testing for legal compliance. Long (over one hour) but very insightful.
WHCB: “Everybody’s Talking about the Future of Health Care”
January 18, 2008 — Fred FortinI don’t know if you’ve noticed but as we move into 2008 there’s a glut of papers, reports and predictions about what is going to happen in health care. Some have such a definitive tone, it makes you wonder if any have read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s, The Black Swan, which engenders in the reader a humble appreciation and respect for role of high impact, improbable events in social affairs. Anyway, I’ve taken the time to look through some of these pronouncements. Many are rehashes of the what I would call “more of the same” prognostications, others find us at various tipping points — unsustainability being a key concept here — in health care and forecast some, often vague, deep changes to come. Below are some of the bits and pieces of these various offerings of the future that caught my eye.
See my full post over at the World Health Care Blog.
We Need a Picture of Obama on a Bike
January 15, 2008 — Fred FortinSince cyclists (or at least these guys) are supporting Obama due to his now newly discovered support to “create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks”, we need some kind of image that makes it real to all the cyclists out there. I mean, damn, look what Edwards did with Lance!
This Explains a Lot: Seeking the ‘Golden Fact’
January 14, 2008 — Fred FortinFrom John Naish:
Our brains have an instinctive way of handling information that worked well until very recently: if we are confused or worried by what we learn, we feel driven to learn more. Now, however, technology has brought an info-blizzard. We see, for example, more then 3,500 sales messages a day. More than six trillion business e-mails were sent last year. It’s bewildering, so we feel driven to seek even more information in quest for the one golden fact that explains it all.
Sounds like he’s making a neurological case for RSS Feed OCD.
Chinese Concern over Health Care
January 13, 2008 — Fred FortinChina’s health care issues are summarized in this PBS Nightly Business Report segment.
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