May 21, 2009 -- Advantage Dental Services led by Mike Shirtcliff, DMD, its president, has filed paperwork to purchase Hayden Family Dentistry Group, which is owned by Cedric Hayden, DDS. Both plans serve Oregon Health Plan clients.
May 21, 2009 -- Despite intense lobbying pressure from organized medicine – including the Oregon Pediatric Society, the Oregon Psychiatric Association and the Oregon Medical Association – legislators may be close to declaring victory.
May 21, 2009 -- The fastest way to get up to speed on how Oregon spends its mental health dollar is to cruise the executive summary of the December 2008 report, Assessment and Evaluation of the Mental Health Care Delivery System in Oregon. This report was prepared at the request of the state legislature by the Public Consulting Group, a Boston-based management consulting firm.
May 21, 2009 -- Our healthcare system is morbidly obese. We outspend by at least two-to-one every other comparable country and still manage to underperform. The industry’s latest promise to trim an amount equal to less than 10% of current annual spending each year for the next ten years barely nudges that ratio. Our system serves as the world’s model for what not to do.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON March 24, 2009 — The health insurance industry offered Tuesday for the first time to curb its controversial practice of charging higher premiums to people with a history of medical problems.
As Oregon lawmakers mull over the idea of moving toward a system that eventually requires insurers to cover everybody, they might want to consider lessons learned from our neighbors to the north… that is, Washington not Canada. (We aren’t going that far).
Our country spends more on healthcare than any other industrialized country, with costs absorbing 16 percent of our GNP (gross national product). If current trends hold, that percentage is expected to increase to 25 percent by the year 2015.
