How Obamacare Could Fail
One of my
non-scientific methods of gauging the current state of the health care system
is by the requests I receive for writing and editing.
For example,
I have recently received four requests to write about failed electronic medical
records systems (no surprise there).
Others include the progress of accountable care organizations (ACOs),
the future economics of physician groups, compensation models for physicians, hospital/physician
relations and new regulatory issues for nursing homes.
So all of
this gets me thinking; what could happen to create a catastrophic failure of
Obamacare? My thoughts….
Accountable
Care Organizations: ACOs could fail to work as
hoped by the feds, this could collapse the foundations of Obamacare
Failed
integration efforts: hospitals and systems are integrating multiple services,
creating much larger and much more complex organizations, not all of them will work
Exchanges: the shopping experience becomes a confusing
mess (high probability IMHO)
Payment
Innovations: innovations such as fee
bundling fail to be feasible
Employer
meltdown: employers engage in wholesale
dumping to the exchanges (not impossible in such a weak economy)
So, what are
the odds of catastrophic failure? 50% -
50% in my opinion.
Tom