The Affordable Care Act Decision: Can Common Sense Prevail In The Midst of Political Chaos?

However, to borrow from Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s last communication with her granddaughter, it is our “fervent wish” that the Supreme Court will apply basic common sense and will take into account the stated intent of Congress when they make their decision regarding the ACA’s fate. In our view, although it is far from perfect, the ACA has played a central role over the past decade.

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The Beginning of the End of Fee-for-Service Medicine

If ever there was a time for a new healthcare payment paradigm, the time is now. Healthcare providers can no longer rely upon an outdated fee-for-service payment model to provide long term financial health for their organizations. They need to consider an immediate redesign their operating revenue portfolios to (1) better align their fee-for-service prices with actual cost; (2) convert more of their physician services to managed risk and value-based care arrangements; and (3) consider strategic alignments or potential mergers with health insurers of scale in their markets.

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The "New Normal" Medicaid: A Viable Public Option Alternative to Medicare-for-All

All this likely points to renewed arguments that a Medicare-for-All single payer government healthcare system would be a potential solution to this new normal scenario. We do not support that plan for all the reasons described above. However, we are convinced that the current crisis will require some type of public option alternative going forward. We believe that the New Normal Medicaid program we described last month could be utilized as one model for this type of public option alternative.

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Launch of Healthcarebigideas.com

I have spent the past four decades as a healthcare executive and consultant – the last 20 of those years working with academic medical centers. It made it especially difficult to watch over the past three months as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the U.S. healthcare provider community.

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