For 16 week 2302s: we discussed rulemaking this week, and here's a story about a recent rule proposed by the Obama Administration on health care:
It’s a big moment in health policy wonk land right now: the Obama
administration has just published the final Accountable Care
Organization rule. You can read all 694 pages of it here.
Sound
dull? Let’s rephrase: The Obama administration has just released a
regulation that could decide whether the American health-care system
moves past the broken, expensive fee-for-service model. The idea is to
encourage groups of providers to band together into “accountable care
organizations” and accept a flat fee for all care related to a
particular patient or condition. If they could deliver high-quality care
in a cost-effective way, they could keep the money they saved. The hope
is to do nothing less than change the basic business model of American
medicine from making money by getting patients to spend more money to
making money by saving patients money.
