Health junction

Today, I achieved my 3,000 th mile of the year and am rounding the corner on 2015. Year end is a time to clean out the closets and make financial decisions, which includes your medical insurance review. This article clarifies the individual insurance mandate tax assessment under the Affordable Care Act and the exemptions to avoid taxation. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress in 2010, creating a standard for medical insurance for most residents of the U.S. and requiring all to obtain medical insurance. As of 2015, individuals who lack proof of medical insurance, will have to pay an additional tax. The tax penalty is up to $695 for those individual tax payers lacking insurance and up to 2.5% of adjusted gross income, capped at $2,085 for a family ($347.50 per child). [1] FYI, your insurance company will produce a form which shows the number of months you had medical insurance coverage. If you obtained your medical insurance through an insurance exchang...

The Real Skinny on Why Your Drugs Are So Expensive Americans are scolded they need to pay more for their prescription drugs, because of the inherent need for drug companies to invest in science to find cures. The real reason for the price gouging is American healthcare consumers are getting ripped off by Wall Street sharks who are profiting at the expense of the rest of us. First, there are differences in the market sector of the pharmaceutical industry, basically, the bio-pharmacological industry, which has invented the highly successful cancer treatments and other health enhancing drugs and the generic drug manufacturing business. For the former, these companies must wait years, often decades before they have a successful payoff, but the latter, is involved in the lucrative and predictable generic drug manufacturing business. This is the sector which creates drugs which are still highly effective, but for whom their patents have expired. In other words, this is where you, the consum...

OK, I was going to write about the new social caste-system determining how you pay for your health care, but the New York Times article about the errant Dr. Ghandi from Indiana (I kid you not) and his over zealous love of invasive cardiac treatments is too good to pass up. First of all, the full color photo in the New York Times of this woman's scarred chest is a shock. The sleeveless pink floral top (not enough of it to merit calling it a blouse) is the standard rag you find so many many American woman wearing to places they should not. I mean really, this is what you wore for an interview with the New York Times? One could make a case that the cardiac chest-crack surgical scar is more aesthetic than that mom tattoo. I thought you were supposed to put your kids names on your body, not the word mom, isn't that reserved for sailors? Read on to find out how this all went wrong in the midwest.  Malpractice and Medicare Rip-offs The woman in the New York Times photo had been treate...

The Affordable Care Act funded the Shared Savings Program which financially rewards health care organizations for reaching targets for patient care, such as reductions in hospital re-admissions, and thereby reduces plan costs. One of the most compelling projects from this pay-for-performance program has been a resurgence in house calls by doctors to vulnerable Medicare patients. The Wall Street Journal recently featured an article on this phenomena and found the "Independence at Home" Medicare demonstration project has shown a 25 million dollar savings for Medicare in the first year of the program. (1) This article reveals more about how this program works, who participates, and what it might mean for health care plans. Here are the creative health care organizations which elected to participate in this three year initiative (sans the LLC, Inc, or other corporate modifiers): Boston Medical Center, Christiana Health Care Services, Cleveland Clinic Home Care Services, Comprehen...