Government Affairs Featured Commentary news and information

The Obama administration's one-year delay in the employer mandate continues to generate confused and contradictory responses that ignore the collapse of the employer-based insurance system.
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The era of big data is approaching. It's hard to overestimate its potential for revolutionizing the practice of medicine.
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As the healthcare industry prepares for the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known affectionately or derisively as “Obamacare,” the issues that preoccupy top hospital and system managers range from cost-cutting to...
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It took the U.S. 8½ years to land a man on the moon but it will take more than a dozen years to accomplish the task of being able to electronically trace fake or tainted drugs back to their source.
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One of the most frequently trumpeted “truths” in healthcare policy research is that the system is larded with waste, perhaps as much as 30% of all spending.
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It didn't take long for the IRS scandal to metastasize. Last week, the mid-level bureaucrat at the center of the mushrooming affair invoked her constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination.
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Washington is again in the grip of scandal fever with the Benghazi e-mails, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, and allegations that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius shook down healthcare firms.
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We have done it. We have decreased the increase in the cost of healthcare. Let us explain. For three decades (1980–2009), the cost of healthcare has been increasing each year at an average rate of 7.4%—double the rate of inflation. However, over the past three years, the increase in...
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One of the most disturbing challenges faced by American healthcare is the enormous geographic variability in both access and quality. We are one nation, and no matter which state we live in, we are all Americans. But (to paraphrase Bono) where we live actually determines if we live.
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Vermont may have a reputation as a small, laid-back state best known for maple syrup and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but the task facing Lindsey Tucker is almost as large as the state's Green Mountains. The deputy commissioner of the state's health insurance exchange, Vermont Health Connect, faces the...
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