Sunday, April 29, 2012
Health Care Slowing the rise in health care spending
Posted by Max Brantley on Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 7:56 AM
Nobody's declaring victory yet, but there are enormous implications in the finding reported today that something may be finally arresting the rise in health care spending.
If doctors and patients really have begun to change their behavior, the savings will be enormous, the benefit to governnment great and political repercussions obvious. Again, nobody's sure about this, but a range of experts spot factors that might help explain the trend. For example:
Finally, and most important, health economists point to a shift toward accountable care, in which providers are paid for the quality of care, not the quantity.
This is the aim, it happens, of the reshaping of Arkansas's government-backed health programs instituted by the Beebe administration. It has been met with skepticism by Republicans. They tend to deride all government health effort because they prefer a system where only those who can afford medical coverage get help. That, it must be said, would be far cheaper in terms of government outlay, but ruinously expensive in terms of illness and death.
Speaking of...
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Beebe names Charles Robinson, former state audit director, state treasurer
May 29, 2013Gov. Mike Beebe today announced that he'd appointed Charles Robinson, retired director of legislative audit, to complete the term of State Treasurer Martha Shoffner, who resigned after being charged with a federal crime for taking payments from a securities salesman to whom she'd directed a disproportionate share of her office's state investments. /more/
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Gov. Beebe tomorrow: New state treasurer, Dassault Falcon announcement
May 28, 2013Gov. Mike Beebe will makes some news Wednesday morning. 1) For one thing, he'll appoint someone to serve as state treasurer through 2014. /more/
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The 2013 legislature closes quietly
May 17, 2013The House and Senate convened briefly this morning and adjourned the 2013 General Assembly sine die. /more/
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Block that cliche: Beebe on the 2014 race for governor
May 9, 2013Channel 4 has posted an interview with Gov. Mike Beebe on the race to succeed him in 2014: Variously, he said: * It will be a "donnybrook." /more/
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David Stewart to fill Fayetteville judge seat
May 9, 2013David Stewart, retired director of the state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission and a former municipal judge in Little Rock, has been appointed by Gov. Mike Beebe to serve as Washington County District Court judge in Fayetteville until a successor can be elected to replace the late Rudy Moore Jr., who died last month. /more/
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UPDATE: Beebe vetoes partisan election oversight bills
April 23, 2013Gov. Mike Beebe cleared his desk of pending legislation today, signing all but thyree bills by Sen. Bryan King to put more power over election oversight in the office of secretary of state, now held by Republican Mark Martin. /more/
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What, me worry? Beebe to sign tax cuts
April 19, 2013Gov. Mike Beebe said today that he'd sign a raft of tax cut bills — heavily tilted toward the wealthy — that could reduce state income by $140 million or more in three years. /more/
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Gov. Beebe, Speaker Carter prefer climactic Medicaid vote Friday, but ....
April 11, 2013The deciding influence on holdout Republicans on Medicaid expansion lies more in the hands of Republican colleagues than in the governor's office, unlike some mighty legislative cliffhangers of years past. /more/
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Medicaid: Arkansas is the buzz
April 8, 2013Politico writes in some depth about the shift in Republican leadership thinking — with some mostly Deep South exceptions — in favor of accepting the medical coverage expansion provided by Obamacare, but shaping it in ways more palatable to conservative thinking. /more/
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