Will Health Care Reform Survive Debt Ceiling Legislation?0

This article first appeared on Becker’s Hospital Review.

Contrary to media headlines closely monitoring the lower- and mid-level federal courts as they opine on the individual insurance mandate, the United States Judiciary Branch may have little impact on the future of President Barack Obama’s 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As fascinating as the legal ramifications may be, the ways in which the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause impact the constitutionality of healthcare reform’s most notorious provision of late could have little meaning if the government fails to pay a few utility bills and the congressional lights go dark.

While the importance of judiciary participation in this historical debate should not be discounted, the U.S. healthcare system must first and foremost be concerned with self-sustainability, especially in light of recent issues concerning our credit rating as a nation. … Read more →

The Wild West Sits One Out: AB 52 is delayed until 2012 as California backs down to health insurance company interests0

As expected, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has had a dramatic impact on the American health care system. One of the more admirable objectives deeply entrenched in health care reform is the establishment of a clear and understandable infrastructure so that its many moving parts and pieces can seamlessly coexist under proper supervision. To this effect, at the end of 2010, the federal government published proposed regulations addressing health insurance rates, including strict disclosure and careful review of any significant price adjustments by insurers.

Focusing on the exorbitant 131 percent increase in health insurance premium rates for families since 1999, these reform-based regulations required all rate increases of 10 percent or more to be publicly disclosed and justified as of 2011. With an eye to the future, PPACA further dictated that by 2012, each state shall be responsible for setting and enforcing its own rate threshold to reflect appropriate cost trends and other meaningful date when reviewing future rate hikes. For states that fail to establish such a system of oversight, either by design or due to lack of resources, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will step in and satisfy the intent of the legislation.

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Preparation Does Not Guarantee Perfection0

This article first appeared on California Healthcare News.

California has always found its way into the public spotlight, and 1975 was no exception. That is the year in which Jerry Brown became the state’s 34th governor, Nolan Ryan started the season for the California Angels, President Ford survived an assassination attempt in Sacramento, actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand gave birth to their daughter Angelina Jolie Voight in Los Angeles, and the state’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 (MICRA) was passed.

At its core, MICRA was the end result of efforts to save California’s physicians from the fallout of a multitude of lawsuits, runaway jury verdicts, and draconian responses by insurance liability companies. With its $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice litigation, MICRA made history as its backers trumpeted the salvation of medicine in California. Controversial from the day Governor Brown first signed it into existence, MICRA continues to face challenges these 36 years later. For better or worse, however, MICRA addressed a critical issue and assuaged what were at the time very real fears that issues of liability and catastrophic jury verdicts would bring California’s medical system to a halt.

California’s hospitals are not alone in their need to proactively address situations involving unforeseen events. In this present era of health care reform, providers across the nation have an even greater abundance of legal issues on which they must focus their attention. For example, in the not too distant past a new concern appeared on the horizon some 2,700 miles from Sacramento. August 2005 saw Hurricane Katrina wreak havoc throughout southeastern Louisiana, with a death toll in excess of 1,800 and an $80 billion price tag, to say nothing of the sociological and environmental collateral damage that quickly followed.

Once the storm had passed and the dust had begun to settle, a frightening discovery at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans captured the nation’s attention anew and resonated in the hearts and minds of every hospital administrator across the nation. Forty-five Memorial Medical Center patients died from the Hurricane, a number greater than any other New Orleans hospital, and blame was quickly directed to the hospital and its failure to provide for its community in an emergency situation. … Read more →

Instructions Never Included0

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

— André Gide, French author

This article was first published on the PBS affiliated website This Emotional Life.

I have decided at last to forgo my search for instructions. Though it was nearly a decade ago that I first hoped to uncover an operational manual at work during my first tenuous days in an unfamiliar hospital environment, such guidance always escaped my discovery.

Seven months ago a new job of sorts presented itself to my wife and me, and not surprisingly, this owner’s manual also turned up missing. The resultant experiences brought about by new fatherhood have only served to reinforce my decision to trust my instincts from this point forward, as while there is an abundance of literature that purports to bridge such gaps in both professional and personal knowledge, I have yet to encounter any crisis brimming with patience, be it related to emergency department protocol or an unexpected and unexplainable late night tantrum.

In my professional role as health care attorney and consultant, I have come to grips with the fact that the federal government may not publish an “executive summary” covering all 2,700 pages of last year’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, more commonly referred to as health care reform) anytime soon.  … Read more →