Tuesday Tidbits

The health insurance trade industry AHIP has released a report on the value of health plan networks and the role of out-of-network charges in rising health care costs. This conclusion strikes me as self-evident but these are strange times when the American Medical Association is riding high. My summer reading has become the House health care reform bill (HR 3200) and the Senate Health Education Labor and Pension Committee bill. I have been struck by the fact that the bills cap health insurer underwriting profits but not healthcare provider profits. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

A Washington Post article on a local school district's efforts to control the H1NI flu suggest that it's going to be an intense flu season. The article also provided an update on the H1N1 flu vaccine:

At the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, 66 adult
volunteers have received the first of two doses of an H1N1 vaccine. The
university is one of 10 sites for national clinical trials of the vaccine, which
started Monday.

The goal of the clinical trials is to determine how strong a dose is required to protect different age groups. To that end, researchers will test for antibodies in the volunteers' blood to assess their immunity. Once testing is complete, the vaccine is to be given to states and local governments and administered to millions of Americans, starting with vulnerable populations such as children and young adults, pregnant women and people with weak immune systems. But there is no timeline or firm idea of how the vaccinations will be administered.

The H1N1 vaccine will not be a substitute for seasonal flu
vaccine, and health officials recommended that their employees and everyone else
get both.