Copyright
Monday, January 18, 2016
Sanders Proposes Universal Health Care: The Path to Federalization
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Emerging Concepts for Future Workers' Compensation Benefits: Portability Now
"We need a portable vehicle for worker protections and benefits.Traditionally, benefits and protections such as workers compensation, unemployment insurance, paid time off, retirement savings, and training/development have been, largely or partly, components of a worker’s employment relationship with an employer. The Affordable Care Act has disrupted that model, providing more independent workers a different avenue of access to health insurance. Another new model is needed to support new ways of work. We believe this model should be:
● Independent: Any worker should be able to access a certain basic set of protections as an individual regardless of where they source income opportunities.
● Flexible and pro-rated: People are pulling together income from a variety of sources, so any vehicle should support contributions that can be pro-rated by units of money earned, jobs done, or time worked, covering new ways of micro-working across different employers or platforms.
● Portable: A person should be able to take benefits and protections with them in and out of various work scenarios.
● Universal: All workers should have access to a basic set of benefits regardless of employment status.
● Supportive of innovation: Businesses should be empowered to explore and pilot safety net options regardless of the worker classification they utilize.
Related articles
- Reshaping Workers' Compensation for the Sharing Economy (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Thursday, June 25, 2015
The Path to Federalization: US Supreme Court Again Validates the Affordable Care Act
Friday, February 6, 2015
Republican Lawmakers Set To Unveil Health Law Replacement Plan
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton declined to give details on the plan. Some Republicans are pushing tax credits and deductions for health care, and others are pushing the idea of "portable" health coverage -- the ability to take your insurance from job to job. The Associated Press: GOP Lawmakers Ready A Plan To Replace Obama Health Care Law A Republican House committee chairman says he and two GOP senators are preparing to release a plan for replacing President Barack Obama's health care law. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton declined to discuss details Tuesday, but said the proposal will give Republicans a proposal that they can stand behind. The Michigan Republican said he, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah and Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina will unveil their proposal Thursday. (2/3) The Fiscal Times: New GOP Congress Develops Alternate Health Plans House lawmakers are planning to vote for a 60th time today to repeal the president’s health care law – a vote that’s legislatively pointless but politically symbolic. Many of the 47 GOP freshmen who were elected last November won at least in part because their constituents were anti-Obamacare. (Ehley, 2/3) |
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- GOP lawmakers ready a plan to replace Obama health care law (sfgate.com)
- Newt Gingrich Is Back: Now Wants To Protect Workers From Unions (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- The Gingrich Revival and The Future of Workers' Compensation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Gingrich Calls for More Child Labor, Calls Laws "Stupid" (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Gingrich Calls Present Workers' Compensation System Dangerous (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Monday, October 27, 2014
National Trends and Developments in Workers' Compensation
Downloads:
Workers Comp Trends and Developments October 2014.pdf
- See more at: http://www.nesri.org/resources/national-trends-and-developments-in-workers-compensation#sthash.nNJrsF3v.dpuf
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- Injured employees cheated by workers' comp law, Miami-Dade judge says (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- California Medical Fraud Investigation Continues (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Pierce County, WA Landscaper Charged with Skipping Out on Workers' Comp Coverage (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
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Tuesday, April 15, 2014
ND workers' comp agency sues over computer project
Yet another reason for a universal integratable workers' compensation docketing program. Today's post is share from http://www.sacbee.com/.
BISMARCK, N.D. -- North Dakota's workers' compensation agency has sued a Chicago company over a failed $17 million computer system overhaul. The Workforce Safety and Insurance agency filed its lawsuit last month in state court against Aon eSolutions Inc. to recoup costs associated with the system that was never delivered. WSI hired Aon eSolutions in 2007 for a software system upgrade. The work was to cost $14 million, but it was plagued by delays and cost overruns and was never finished. The contract with the company expired in 2012, and WSI did not renew it. The state Legislature last year gave WSI $750,000 for potential litigation. WSI, which provides coverage for businesses when employees are hurt or killed on the job, alleges, among other things, negligence, fraud and deceit against the company in court papers. The agency has requested a jury trial. "Aon promised to deliver a state-of-the-art integrated software package that would replace WSI's existing software system and meet all of the agency's business needs," said WSI Director Bryan Klipfel said in a statement. "WSI intends to prove that Aon did not follow through on its promise. We are acting in the best interest of our stakeholders as we try to recover the money that was spent on this desired product." Aon said in a statement that it is "disappointed that WSI chose this course. We delivered substantial value to WSI and we did nothing wrong. We look forward to telling our side of... |
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Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Throw The Book At 'Em
It's a shame that hundreds, if not thousands, of injured workers underwent unnecessary spinal fusion surgeries and must live with the debilitating aftermath of significant disability because of people whose greed overrides the well being of fellow humans.
I had learned about Michael Drobot and Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, and their co-conspirators, preying on workers' compensation patients some time ago.
On Friday though, Federal prosecutors announced that Michael D. Drobot faces up to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to paying kickbacks in a $500 million fraud scheme relating to spinal fusions and admitted to bribing state Sen. Ron Calderon to delay legislation to repeal the separate reimbursement for spinal hardware.
Calderon, D-Montebello, was indicted one day earlier on 24 charges, including bribery, money laundering, wire fraud and filing a false tax return. His brother, former...
[Click here to see the rest of this post]
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Work Comp Lost Focus (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
OK's True Cost Control Feature (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
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Read more about "Federalization of Workers' Compensation"
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Why does health care cost so much in America? Ask Harvard's David Cutler
The cost of medical treatment continues to increase yearly. A major component of the Workers' Compensation benefits system is now the cost of medical care. Workers' Compensation insurance is not alone in experiencing this phenomena. Soaring medical costs pervades the entire Insurance industry and are a major concern of both Medicare and Medicaid solvency. Over the next two decades, the United States will have to reinvent the wheel I am determined what limitations on the cost of medical care must be imposed. The entire delivery system will ultimately experience change. It is more likely than not that Congress will again, "kick the can down the road, and delay implementation of significant change until after the baby boomer generation. Without a creative approach being offered now, the options will be limited, and will probably result in the universal medical care delivery system under a federal umbrella. The American health care system is structured differently from systems in other countries, making it more expensive. Paul Solman: Harvard's David Cutler is among the country's foremost health economists, famous for -- among other research -- a controversial paper arguing that even our exorbitant health care industry, in terms of increased productivity and life span outcomes, delivers more than what we pay for it. Cutler, who was profiled by Roger Lowenstein in the New York Times Magazine in 2005,
Paul Solman: Why does health care cost so much in America? David Cutler: Let me give you three reasons why. The first one is because the administrative costs of running our health care system are astronomical. About one quarter of health care cost is associated with administration, which is far higher than in any other country. Paul Solman: What's the next highest? David Cutler: About 10, 15 percent. Just to give you one example, Duke University Hospital has 900 hospital beds and 1,300 billing clerks. The typical Canadian hospital has a handful of billing clerks. Single-payer systems have fewer administrative needs. That's not to say they're better, but that's just on one dimension that they clearly cost less. What a lot of those people are... |
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- The Shame of American Health Care (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
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- Study: Calif. workers compensation overhaul too new to parse (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Obama Selects Health Policy Advocate as Surgeon General (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- ObamaCare's Union Favor (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- What a Government Default Will Do To Workers' Compensation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Privatization of workers, compensation continues throughout WV (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- California: Medical Delay and Denial Protested (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
The Shame of American Health Care
Even as Americans struggle with the changes required by health care reform, an international survey released last week by the Commonwealth Fund, a research organization, shows why change is so necessary.
The report found that by virtually all measures of cost, access to care and ease of dealing with insurance problems, Americans fared poorly compared with people in other advanced countries. The survey covered 20,000 adults in the United States and 10 other industrial nations — Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Britain, all of which put in place universal or near-universal health coverage decades ago. The United States spends far more than any of these countries on a per capita basis and as a percent of the national economy.
For that, it gets meager results. Some 37 percent of American adults went without recommended care, did not see a doctor when sick or failed to fill prescriptions in the past year because of costs, compared with 4 percent in Britain and 6 percent in Sweden. Nearly a quarter of American adults could not pay medical bills or had serious problems paying them compared with less than 13 percent in France and 7 percent or less in five other countries. Even Americans who were insured for the entire year were more likely than adults abroad to forgo care because of costs, an indication of how skimpy some insurance policies are.
When Americans got sick, they had to wait longer than people in...
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- Lousy Medicaid Arguments (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Study: Calif. workers compensation overhaul too new to parse (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- mHealth: A Potential Player for Workers' Compensation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Building an Accountable Care Organization and Its Impact on Workers' Compensation
Suppose for a moment that you are an administrator in an organization that provides health care and your job is on the line for delivering both savings and improved care. Because you want to be part of the solution to the health-care-cost problem, you have signed contracts with payers that reward your institution or system for reducing the costs of care. These same contracts require you to pay a penalty if the costs of care go up more than inflation. What would be your first, second, and third move?
This is not a hypothetical question. More than 300 hundred administrators of accountable care organizations (ACOs) across the United States are facing it. My team at Partners HealthCare in Boston is faced with this exciting (and daunting) challenge. Having signed shared-savings contracts with both commercial payers and Medicare, our CEO, Gary Gottlieb, established a Population Health Management unit. A major focus of our work is to achieve shared savings in our contracts. That means controlling costs for the populations cared for by our primary care physicians. Since doctors and hospitals within Partners bill for a majority of the care these patients receive, you could say our success depends on reducing the income of our colleagues. Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen has taught us this is not possible — that an organization will not cannibalize itself. So when we go knocking on... |
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- US Supreme Court Asked to Review MSP Preemption Issue (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
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Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The Trend to Supersize Hospitals
Hospital have been not only purchasing other hospitals reducing the number of independent hospitals in the US from 5,000 to 1,000, but it has also accelerated the trend for hospitals to purchase lucrative medical practices to earn income from diagnostic tests and to control the flow of hospital admissions.
An unintended consequence of this path may actually increase hospital costs because fewer hospital facilities exist, or the lack of competition may just lead to a universal medical care system. Workers' compensation insurance programs may therefore be required higher fees to hospitals.
"Hospitals across the nation are being swept up in the biggest wave of mergers since the 1990s, a development that is creating giant hospital systems that could one day dominate American health care and drive up costs."
Read the complete article, "New Laws and Rising Costs Create a Surge of Supersizing Hospitals" (NY Times)
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Friday, August 9, 2013
A Conservative Re-Envisioning Of The Health Care Overhaul
Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org
Tired of hearing policy experts and politicians debate the 2010 health care law? What if you took the Affordable Care Act out of the conversation? If you could scrap the nation’s current health care system and build a new one, what would it look like?
A group of health care experts from Stanford University, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the University of Southern California, among other institutions, has compiled a report with their answer to that question. Funded by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute’s National Research Initiative, the document offers a variety of ideas that its authors say would achieve universal coverage, protect the poor and the sick and restrain health care cost growth, among other priorities.
“In many ways, the ACA has been a distraction, because people think that all of the health care debate boils down to ‘do you support the ACA or do you oppose it?’ ” said Darius Lakdawalla, one of the authors and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, as well as a professor of pharmaceutical economics in the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy. “To us, that is really a very narrow and misleading question.”
The report’s proposals include allowing health insurers to charge premiums that reflect consumers’ health care costs and providing generous subsidies to help the poor obtain...
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Obama Administration Delays and Simplifies Rules on Health Care
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Single Payer A Possibility for New York City Employees
"Vowing to “make New York City the single-payer laboratory in the country” if he is elected
mayor, Anthony D. Weiner on Thursday presented an ambitious plan to create a Medicare-like system for the coverage of municipal workers, retirees and uninsured immigrant residents left out of the Affordable Care Act."
Click here to read: "Weiner Wants City to Test Single-Payer Health Care" The NY Times
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Just Go to The Emergency Room
A recent RAND study now validates that an alternate route is increasingly being used to access the medical care system, the emergency room. Few restrictions exists to enter an emergency room door. The red tape imposed by insurance carriers is eliminated, and the concept of deny and delay are non-existent in emergency room medicine.
Hospital emergency departments play a growing role in the U.S. health care system, accounting for a rising proportion of hospital admissions and serving increasingly as an advanced diagnostic center for primary care physicians, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
While often targeted as the most expensive place to get medical care, emergency rooms remain an important safety net for Americans who cannot get care elsewhere and may play a role in slowing the growth of health care costs, according to the study.
Emergency departments are now responsible for about half of all hospital admissions in the United States, accounting for nearly all of the growth in hospital admissions experienced between 2003 and 2009.
Despite evidence that people with chronic conditions such as asthma and heart failure are visiting emergency departments more frequently, the number of hospital admissions for these conditions has remained flat. Researchers say that suggests that emergency rooms may help to prevent some avoidable hospital admissions.
"Use of hospital emergency departments is growing faster than the use of other parts of the American medical system," said Dr. Art Kellermann, the study's senior author and a senior researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "While more can be done to reduce the number of unnecessary visits to emergency rooms, our research suggests emergency rooms can play a key role in limiting growth of preventable hospital admissions."
Friday, May 17, 2013
Obamacare Will Be Collecting Workers' Compensation Medical Records
(P.L. 111-148). On March 30, 2010, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
(P.L. 111-152) was signed into law. The two laws are collectively referred to as the Affordable
Care Act. The Affordable Care Act creates new competitive private health insurance markets –
called Exchanges – that will give millions of Americans and small businesses access to
affordable coverage and the same insurance choices members of Congress will have. Exchanges
will help individuals and small employers shop for, select, and enroll in high quality, affordable
private health plans that fit their needs at competitive prices. The IT systems will support a
simple and seamless identification of people who qualify for coverage through the Exchange, tax
credits, cost-sharing reductions, Medicaid, and CHIP programs. By providing a place for onestop shopping, Exchanges will make purchasing health insurance easier and more understandable
and will put greater control and more choice in the hands of individuals and small businesses."
Read more about "Federalization" and workers' compensation:
Friday, April 19, 2013
US EPA Reports: Better Planning, Execution and Communication Could Have Reduced the Delays in Completing a Toxicity Assessment of the Libby, Montana, Superfund Site
Sunday, March 31, 2013
OSHA Needs To Be Strengthened
Commission on Workmen's Compensation Laws in 1972 reported that safety should be encouraged, and that, "....Economic incentives in the program should reduce the number of work-related· injuries
English: A picture of David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
***
“"I’m the first to admit this [OSHA] is broken,' said David Michaels, the OSHA director, referring to the agency’s record on dealing with workplace health threats. 'Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people end up on the gurney.'"
Friday, March 15, 2013
Workers' Compensation is Riding on the Road to Wellville with Obama Care
Sunday, February 17, 2013
The Missouri Compromise - 2013
Part of the compromise was to limit liability of occupational disease claims against employers and re-establish the exclusivity bar. Albiet, the SIF would provide additional monetary benefits to those exposed at work.
While it sounds nice on paper, the problem, of using a band-aide to permanently correct the overall concerns of both Industry and Labor, will not work in the long-run. Actually this has been tried before and already failed. Employers notoriously dodge the bullet and delay and deny occupational claims even though they are difficult to defend against.
When the going gets tough, down the road, Industry will end up further restricting the benefit flow to injured workers, and medical delivery will then remain non-existent. Consequentially, the end result is that the general taxpayer and not the consumer, ends up paying for the continued unsafe work practices of Industry.
The Missouri Compromise 2013 is only a first step in recognizing a problem exists. It demonstrates that legislators from different parties can reach a compromise. The real fix would be even greater OSHA enforcement of safety procedures, new Federal regulation and, a universal health care system.
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- Silica Linked to a Fatal and Compensable Lung Cancer (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)