10 AM, 22 December 2022 Updated 23 December 2022
The bill is going to pass but the 1099K amendment proposed by Senators Bill Hagerty (TN, R) and Joe Manchin (WV, D) has failed. But, the IRS has granted a 1 year reprieve, so it won't be 2023 taxes are filed that this provision will kick in.
Continue reading 4155 Pages Long
When will it stop?
Yes, we all know that we have inflation- mostly due to weather related issues blocking our supply chains. But, health care costs (yet again) jumped almost 10% last year. (That’s more than double the previous year’s increase of “only” 4.3%; one of the lowest in a while.) This one, though, is the highest increase is 2 decades! Coupling that with our modest drop in GDP (gross domestic product) means healthcare glommed some 20% (compared to 17.6%) of the economy last year.
Continue reading Through the roof?
I am sure you’ve all heard that Kentucky was granted permission to require Medicaid recipients to get a job. I am even sure many of you think this is a fine idea. After all, why should an able-bodied person get to flounder at home and use our tax dollars to garner a benefit.
Continue reading Is Kentucky Really Leading the Way?
Several years ago (ok, a little more than a decade ago), I was contracted to manage the finances (and rehabilitation) of a multi-site, multi-unit apartment complex that stretched from Baltimore to Hagerstown to Silver Spring (all in Maryland) to Loudon (Virginia). During that time, we increased occupancy to over 95% in three of the units- and kept the fourth at 80%, so we could rehab a section of units at a time.
I have been an advocate of telemedicine for decades. Way back when my friend Nancy was a nurse and working with other health professionals to make this concept a reality.
Continue reading Just a swoop of the pencil?
Yesterday, we spoke about how PPACA (Obamacare) has been attenuating the US healthcare cost spiral. Over the past few years, the overall cost growth has dropped dramatically. But, many of us don’t feel the love- because our employers and our insurance companies have been playing the “cost shifting” game. They’ve changed our co-insurance, they’ve raised our deductibles- claiming that when we have ‘skin in the game’, we are more attentive to the costs of our healthcare.
Continue reading Costs slow, but it still bad news
As discussed yesterday (this is part 3 of an update on PPACA- there is one more in this array.), PPACA (Obamacare) originally considered a single-payer solution. For about a second. Then, the goal was to develop non-profit insurers to compete against the existing health insurers, thereby providing (one would hope) lower cost alternatives for US citizens. All in the name of arresting health care cost increases- and, preferably, to lower our health care expenditures.
Continue reading The COOPs. Part 2.
Most of you know that I believe in universal health insurance. Because in the long run it will save us (as a nation, and individually) money. Notice, I did not say universal “free” health insurance, even though I recognize that about 10% of Americans can’t afford it, another 10% will need help paying for all of it, and about 15% of Americans think they don’t need it. (Of course, about 15% – or more- of Americans don’t think they need car insurance, but that doesn’t mean we don’t demand they carry it.)
Continue reading What Medicare Needs?
I a presuming you woke up fine this morning. The world did not end. Well, that’s not the way it was predicted. Had you listened to all the histrionics, you would have expected the world to have ended yesterday. You see, yesterday was another red letter day in the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. You know, what is pejoratively called ObamaCare.
Continue reading Armageddon did NOT come!
We know that patients are eventually going to be the ultimate decision makers for health care. There already are websites that let us rate our physicians. We have been promised information (clear and concise) about the quality of our hospitals.
Continue reading What a long, strange trip…
