What I Learned About The ACA

Today’s post is authored by David Depaolo and appears on his blog daviddepaolo.com. As usual David hits “the nail on the head” with his objective analysis of the potential impact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have upon the entire workers’ compensation system. There are certain trends that Dr. Gruber has identified, that in synergy with the ACA, have the potential of causing a dynamic shift in workers’ compensation insurance. As political and social adjustments are made to the ACA those uncertainties will certainly resolve. One of the big draws for me at the Workers' Compensation Research Institute's annual meeting this year was to hear from one of the architects and authors of the Affordable Care Act, Dr. who is a professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I just needed to learn. The ACA is so complex, so huge, so broad in its scope, that anyone who is not completely versed in the health care system (the vast majority of us) would have absolutely no understanding of the law, how it plays out, who it really affects, what is to come of various provisions, etc. In fact, I am willing to bet that virtually all lawmakers, including our president himself, have little to no true understanding of the law. Dr. Gruber is a health economics expert - meaning he has spent virtually all of his professional life studying health care systems and the economic underpinnings of health care. It is...

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The Public and the Conflict over Future Medicare Spending

Medicare will govern the at least the cost of workers' compensation medical delivery benefits. Today's post was shared by NEJM and comes from www.nejm.org

Two recent government reports show substantial short-term improvements in the financial outlook for Medicare and in the federal budget deficit.1,2 However, these forecasts also suggest the need for further action brought about by a worsening of the financial situation after 2015 as the number of Medicare recipients increases from 52 million to 73 million in the decade following.1-3 This issue is likely to receive considerable attention in the upcoming debate about the federal budget deficit and the national debt. As we reported in the Journal in 2011, there has been little public support for major policy changes aimed at reducing Medicare spending to lower the federal deficit.4 This article goes further and seeks to document the underlying beliefs that may shape the public response to future efforts to substantially slow projected Medicare spending. Our thesis is that there exists today a wide gap in beliefs between experts on the financial state of Medicare and the public at large. Because of the potential electoral consequences, these differences in perception are likely to have ramifications for policymakers addressing this issue. We examine this thesis by analyzing data from six public opinion polls conducted in 2013 with 1013 to 2017 U.S. adults, plus historical data, in a project supported by the Robert Wood Johnson... Robert J. Blendon, Sc.D., and John M. Benson, M.A. N Engl J Med 2013; 369:1066-1073September 12, 2013DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsr1307622

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Related articles

• The 10 Highest Medical Cost Jurisdictions for Medicare (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• No Shopping Zone: Medicare Is Not Part Of New Insurance Marketplaces (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Democrats Jump on the 'Death Panel' Bandwagon (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Medicare To Punish 2,225 Hospitals For Excess Readmissions (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• US Supreme Court Asked to Review MSP Preemption Issue (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• 9th Circuit Vacates MSP Injunction Against CMS for Medicare Reimbursement (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

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