Morning Headlines 12/3/15

National Health Spending Growth Accelerates In 2014

The CMS Office of the Actuary publishes new data showing that healthcare expenditures rose 5.3 percent in 2014, after five consecutive years of historically low growth. Health spending now accounts for 17.5 percent of national GDP.

UnitedHealth Says It Should Have Avoided Obamacare Longer

UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley says the company will lose about $500 million on public insurance exchanges between 2015 and 2016. He explains, “It was for us a bad decision. I take accountability for sitting out the exchange market in year one so we could in theory observe, learn and see how the market experience would develop. This was a prudent going-in position. In retrospect, we should have stayed out longer.”

Health Care Providers Need a Value Management Office

Harvard Business Review analyzes the role a “value management office” would play in health systems migrating to new value-based reimbursement models, citing MD Anderson Cancer Center (TX) and Hospital for Special Surgery (NY) as examples of organizations where such offices are working well.

E-mails reveal concerns about Theranos’s FDA compliance date back years

Internal emails from Theranos reveal that the DoD reported the company to the FDA in 2012 after evaluating the technology for use in theater. CEO Elizabeth Holmes called on Theranos board member and four-star Marine Corps General (ret.) James Mattis to intervene on the company’s behalf.