Weekend Update

Congress remains in session this coming week on Capitol Hill. Here's a link to the Week in Congress's report on last week's actions there.  On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Operations Committee will hold a hearing on the President's nomination of Dale Cabaniss to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Healthcare Dive reports from the American Association of Healthcare Journalists annual conference last week. Interesting observation:

The panel on the retail-ization of healthcare took time to address the elephant of the famously disruptive online retailer [Amazon], with Humana's [Chief Medical Officer William] Shrank noting insurers were adopting strategies of retailers, but not their goals.  "The discussion of the retailing of healthcare has taken on a life of its own," Shrank said. "Retail is about increasing consumption; we in healthcare want to reduce unnecessary consumption."

In that regard, the Boston Globe has a front page article today on the extent of health insurance coverage of proton beam treatment for cancer.

While reading a Wall Street Journal editorial over the weekend, the FEHBlog ran across this useful Peterson Kaiser Health System Tracker.  Check it out.