Tuesday Tidbits

A Heritage Foundation article features an article by Donald Devine who was the OPM Director in President Reagan's first term. Mr. Devine was a disruptive influence over the FEHBP. While he was OPM Director, OPM mandated a 12% across the board benefit cut in the FEHBP in order to bring down premiums. The action did cause enrollees to give lower premium plans a shot. The action's impact on FEHBP premiums was blunted by the fact that contemporaneously Congress began to heavily shift Medicare costs onto commercial health plans like those in the FEHBP. 

Econtalk, the FEHBlog's favorite podcast, presented this week a conversation between its podcaster Russ Roberts and economist Ed Dolan about employer sponsored healthcare in the U.S.  Mr. Dolan's idea is to replace current health benefits with universal catastrophic coverage. It's an interesting concept. 

This week the by invitation-only J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is going on in San Francisco.  Modern Healthcare has been tracking events at the conference. The FEHBlog watches Mornings with Maria on Fox Business this morning. Maria Bartiromo is San Francisco for this conference,  This morning she interviewed the CEO of Privia Health. Privia is according to its website, a unique physician practice management and population health technology company that partners with top doctors. We build and enable high-performance physician groups and clinically integrated provider networks to help better manage the health of patient populations." Interesting and it's not owned by a hospital system but it is big. However, the ACA drove providers and health plans to grow. 

In this regard, Healthcare Dive reports that "Patients want more from providers than just good care. They also desire ease, convenience and choice, according to NRC Health's 2019 Healthcare Consumer Trends Report. Patients surveyed spoke highly of their providers, but were negative about support staff, wait times, billing and insurance."

In a bit of good news the Wall Street Journal reports tonight that "Deaths from cancer dropped 27% over a quarter century, meaning an estimated 2.6 million fewer people died of the disease during that period, according to a new report from researchers at the American Cancer Society." The cancer deal rate is still high but it's trending down. 

The Journal also reports about the use of telehealth to provide child and adolescent psychiatry services because kids are familiar with smart phones and 

As many as one in five children experiences a mental-health issue in a given year. But children must often wait months and travel long distances for an appointment with a specialist. 

Telehealth is not the alpha and the omega of care but breaking the medical service ice is a good thing.