Author: Ron Dawson

Now that we’re deep in a fractious electoral season, it’s tempting to descend into rank political speculation about health care issues. So let’s get started. Actually, let’s add a modicum of caution about rushing to precise health policy judgments in the heat of political campaigns. For there’s a tendency to report breathlessly on perceived policy …

Hombre readers know health policy is nothing if not unrelenting substance, each day a new encounter with deep thinking on ACOs, risk corridors, annual update factors, and similar weighty matters. It’s also an accepted fact that modes of communication have undergone dramatic change. But how, if at all, do the two relate? That is, might …

It’s now more than obvious that the key U.S. issue for the immediate indefinite future is the economy, and it’s no surprise that an industry as sizable as health care would find itself in the thick of the debate on job creation. But as seems the case with all things health care . . . …

In a much-discussed recent article, “Why Software is Eating the World,” Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen says we’re in the midst of “a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy.” Andreesen sees health care as ripe for software-generated disruption — a point …

Anyone curious about potential future directions in Medicare coverage policy, or simply looking for a detail-packed treatment of this complex subject, can check out the topic via a newly posted Urban Institute report, which includes as authors former CMS coverage policy officials Sean Tunis (pictured below) and Steve Phurrough. The report rattles around the known …

As the Congressional “Super Committee” moves forward with debt/deficit-reduction efforts over the next three and a half months (the panel holds its first meeting today), look for health groups to reach deep into their playbooks, deploying studies, PR, advertising, grass roots campaigns, and similar exotic tactics to make their case against Medicare and other policy …

At the very time we’re tempted to sneak a snooze in the hammock a last time or two, we’ve been jarred from our late-August stupor by a traffic jam of reports emanating from a variety of government bodies. Oblivious to the rites of season, studies like these cycle through the landscape on their own unrelenting …

That development and use of quality measures can be an excruciatingly gradual process marked by policy ebbs and flows was pointed up by two items that came across the transom of our research platform last week. On the one hand, quality-measure proponents might see forward momentum in CMS’ request for comments on development of a …