“Cut the grass, son!” Yep, that’s my Dad, circa early 1970s, encouraging 11-year-old me to get off my butt and do some work, which frankly at that age I was keen to avoid. But he was home from working offshore and would be for at least a week, and it was July in Morgan City. You could almost watch the grass grow, so I wasn’t getting out of it. Read more
For the past few months, I’ve been telling my Straight Talk audience about the people at Blue Cross who are doing hard work to make big improvements to the health insurance landscape and health in Louisiana.
Today, I want to introduce you to the head honcho here at Blue Cross, Dr. I. Steven Udvarhelyi. He’s our President and CEO and he’s best known around here as Dr. Steve. Read more
You ever hear the expression “You just can’t make this stuff up?” It implies that reality is so bizarre, so unexpected, that it HAS to be unscripted and random.
If you’ve followed the fate of the Affordable Care Act through the courts over the past decade, you would become a believer of “you just can’t make this stuff up.” Read more
Legislation, both state and federal, has a unique way of imposing rather artificial life transitions on us. When I turned 15 years old in the mid-70s, I was immediately eligible (after taking a VERY simple test and paying $5) to drive a car, alone, anywhere I wanted to go. No auto insurance was required, by the way. At my 18th birthday, I was legally able to join the military, vote, and buy and drink alcohol. I was dubbed by society at that point a fully featured “adult.” In the 70s.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is unconstitutional.
It’s a big ruling, the second step in a long process to determine the future of the law. But the Fifth Circuit stopped short of what the people who brought the lawsuit wanted. In fact, the judges on the Fifth Circuit, right here in Louisiana, sent the lawsuit back to the district judge in Texas to “conduct a more searching inquiry” into which parts of the law could survive without the mandate. Read more
I watched the Affordable Care Act completely change the way health insurance is paid for and delivered over the past decade. Today, I think it’s prudent to apply some of what I’ve learned on those front lines to the current healthcare debate: Medicare for All.
As you might expect, there are many risks and many unknowns in this proposed massive undertaking that would re-route 20% of our country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Here are the top 10 things I believe will have to be carefully thought out before such a program has a chance of success. Read more
