JustCare

Category: What’s Buzzing

  • Drug and device companies paid doctors and hospitals nearly $3.5 billion in the last five months of 2013

    Drug and device companies paid doctors and hospitals nearly $3.5 billion in the last five months of 2013

    New federal data reveals that drug and device companies paid doctors and hospitals significant amounts of money to help promote their products in 2013. Thanks to health care reform, which requires much more accountability and transparency in health care, the Center for Medicare and Medicare Services has just released data showing that in the five months between August and December 2013, 546,000 physicians and 1,360 teaching hospitals received almost $3.5 billion from these medical industries.  To be clear, this does not include money from medical device and drug companies to members of Congress to help ensure that the U.S. government continues to allow them to charge Americans rates for their products twice as high as what other wealthy nations allow.

    To view the Open Payments data for yourself, click here.  It is intended to help the public understand how much money is going to doctors and teaching hospitals from drug and device manufacturers.

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  • With Affordable Care Act, more Latinos insured

    With Affordable Care Act, more Latinos insured

    A new report from the Commonwealth Fund reveals that thanks to the Affordable Care Act, many more Latinos are insured.

    Overall, there has been a 13 point increase in the Latino population with health insurance since last year.  As of a few months ago, 23 percent of the Latino population is uninsured as compared with last year when 36 percent of the Latino population was uninsured.

    Young Latinos between the ages of 19 and 34 have seen the greatest drop—20 points–in their uninsured rate.  Between July and September 2013, 43 percent of the Latino population between 19 and 34 was uninsured.  Nine months later, between April and June 2014, 23 percent of the Latino young adult population was uninsured.

    States that have expanded Medicaid coverage have cut by half the percentage of uninsured Latinos from 35 percent to 17 percent.  States that have not expanded Medicaid coverage still have 33 percent of their Latino population uninsured.

    For decades, Latinos had the highest uninsured rate in America.

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    If you need health insurance, where you live could matter a lot 

  • History of Medicare

    History of Medicare

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=693XQSujAh8frameborder%3D0allowfullscreen

    Medicare and other programs that benefit older adults and people with disabilities have gone through a lot over the years. The history of Medicare speaks volumes for Medicare’s value in keeping older adults and people with disabilities out of poverty and living longer. Watch the video from Kaiser Family Foundation to learn more.

  • Caregivers have rights too…at least in some cases

    Caregivers have rights too…at least in some cases

    We all know how hard being a caregiver can be. The financial, emotional an physical tolls are often enormous. Caregiving demands are likely to pull people away from their paid jobs. Thanks to the Family and Medical Leave Act, caregivers have rights.  And, it’s important to know your rights to balance work and family needs. In certain cases, you have the right to take up to twelve weeks unpaid leave from your job each year, without risk of losing that job or with the right to return to an equivalent job an benefits. If the care is for a family member with a serious illness, you do not need to take the time off in a block but can break it up (for example, take one day a week).
    The Family and Medical Leave Act safeguards your job along with health insurance benefits, when these conditions are met.
    1. The employer is a federal, state or local agency, a school or a private company with more than 50 employees.
    2. You have worked for the employer for at least one full year and 1250 hours.
    3. Your spouse, child or parent has a serious medical conditions.
    4. You give 30 days notice.
    Of course many of us will face caregiving demands and not qualify for the protections that the Family and Medical Leave Act offer. In those cases, speak with the human resources department at your job to see whether you can arrange a work schedule that better allows you to balance work and family caregiving needs.For more information , you can call the Family and Medical Leave hotline at 1-8000-959-FMLA.
  • Americans give our health care system a C on affordability

    Americans give our health care system a C on affordability

    Just released survey findings from Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, reveal that a majority of Americans believe that key health care stakeholders are making too much money off of patients, and many believe that the federal government should take responsibility for reining in costs.In 2013, families typically spent $600 on their health care on top of health insurance premiums.  And, almost one in eight of them spent more than $5000, excluding premiums. Overall, respondents gave the US health care system a C on affordability but, of that group, people with Medicare gave it a B on affordability.

    The overall grade among all respondents on quality of care, affordability, fairness, choice of doctors and ease of access was a B-.  Of note, the people with Medicare gave our health care system the highest overall grade of any other group, including the well insured, B-, and the light users, C+.Of the 1000 people surveyed, one in three (34 percent) believe the health insurers have “profited most excessively” from our health care system and one in four (26 percent) believe that drug companies have seen the most profits.  Very few (2 percent) appreciate the extent to which the medical device manufacturers, makers of syringes and MRI machines among a wide array of other products, profit from the system.

    More than 40 percent of respondents, two out of five, said that the federal government should address these excessive costs.  An overwhelming majority, 86 percent felt that the government should not allow drug companies to charge Americans more than they do people in other countries.  More than 80 percent of them also felt that the government should set standard prices for hospitals, doctors and drugs.

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  • Chained CPI reduces Social Security benefits and income

    Chained CPI reduces Social Security benefits and income

    Fact: A chained CPI (“consumer price index”) is a way of calculating cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits that does not keep up with inflation for older adults.  It would therefore effectively cut Social Security benefits for everyone receiving them today and in the future, including retired and disabled veterans.

    Fact: People receiving Social Security benefits at 65 would lose $658 in benefits at age 75, $1,147 at age 85, and $1622 at 95, a 9.2 percent cut.To learn more, go to Social Security Works.

  • How well do you understand the problem with health care costs?

    How well do you understand the problem with health care costs?

    Let Josh Sundquist explain four shocking facts about the problem with health care costs in his own delightful way. 
  • Medicare Advantage plans are a bad deal for taxpayers

    Medicare Advantage plans are a bad deal for taxpayers

    Two recent reports on Medicare Advantage plan billing practices reveal that Medicare Advantage plans are a bad deal for taxpayers. A number of them are bilking taxpayers of billions of dollars. A new study by the Department of Health and Human Services shows that some Medicare Advantage plans are “upcoding” or, in English, charging Medicare for more costly services than they are providing. Because Medicare pays Medicare Advantage plans more to treat patients who are sicker, some of them charge Medicare as if their patients are in worse health than they actually are.

    Another study by the Center on Public Integrity determined that “billing errors” by Medicare Advantage plans led the government to overpay them nearly $70 billion between 2008 and 2013.  Not surprisingly, in many parts of the country, the cost of caring for people with Medicare through these private plans is as much as 25% more than traditional Medicare. Of note, a large number of Medicare Advantage plans have not succeeded at controlling Medicare spending, as many lawmakers had suggested they would when they were first created in 2003.

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  • How much truth do you think there is in medical conspiracy theories?

    How much truth do you think there is in medical conspiracy theories?

    A new JAMA study reveals that a large swath of the general public agrees with a variety of medical conspiracy theories.  More than a third of Americans surveyed believe that pressure from the drug companies has led the US Food and Drug Administration to prevent the public from getting natural cures for cancer.  And, one in five Americans believe that health officials know that cellphones cause cancer but that big companies are pressuring them from doing anything about it.  What do you think? The chart below tells more.
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  • A simple blood test may be able to predict Alzheimer’s disease

    A simple blood test may be able to predict Alzheimer’s disease

    According to a new report in Nature magazine, scientists have identified a new test that can predict with excellent accuracy whether an individual will develop Alzheimer’s disease or cognitive impairments.  The blood test examines levels of different fats.  The scientists found that individuals with Alzheimer’s disease have low-levels of 10 different kinds of fats compared to older adults without cognitive impairments.

    The blood test is not yet available to doctors. And, there is still a lot of work to be done before it becomes available. But, it appears to be a significant advance, allowing doctors to know with 90 percent accuracy whether an individual will develop Alzheimer’s long before any symptoms appear.

    Today it is expensive and difficult to predict Alzheimer’s disease.  The disease affects more than 35 million people around the world, and its prevalence is growing.  According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than 500,000 Americans die of Alzheimer’s disease each year.  It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.  And, in the ten years between 2000 and 2010 there was a 68 percent increase in the number of people dying of Alzheimer’s disease.