Category: Health Care
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Virginia’s State Health System Will Continue to Kill its Citizens If We Let It
by James C. Sherlock Virginians of every political stripe have grown very tired of watching the Northam administration obfuscate repeated, very public failures to carry out its role in protecting the health of its citizens since the onset of COVID. But that is an effect, not a cause, of the massive and continuing failures at…
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COVID Vaccine Distribution: What Can Virginia Learn from Florida?
Fiasco. From the start, Florida prioritized anybody 65 or older into its top tier for receiving the COVID vaccine. Virginia initially limited early access to the vaccine to those 75 and over. Last Thursday Gov Northam announced that Virginia would include people 65 and over in the current distribution of vaccines. That adds 9.5% of…
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Employer COVID Mandates Might Outlive Pandemic
by Steve Haner Virginia’s emergency temporary workplace standards on COVID-19 are one step closer to becoming permanent, over the continuing loud objections from employers that they are duplicative, expensive, and not making anybody any safer than existing health and safety protections already do. UPDATE: The text of the final permanent standard approved Wednesday was finally…
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Recreational Marijuana Soon to Be De-Facto Legal in Northern Virginia
by DJ Rippert Elections have consequences. The recent presidential election along with the Georgia run-off election has secured Democratic control of Congress with no serious risk of presidential veto. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., has tried for years to establish a recreational marijuana marketplace only to be thwarted by Republicans in Congress. Finally, in the 2020 session…
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General Assembly Legislation of Note: Education, Schools and Health
by James C. Sherlock As bills affecting education, educational institutions or health get filed and make their way, or not, through the General Assembly in 2021, I will occasionally make note of them here. I will certainly not list them all, but will highlight the ones of interest to me and I hope to our…
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Anyone Think They Understand Hospital Pricing?
by James C. Sherlock Having written yesterday about the newly appeals-court-certified HHS rules on hospital price transparency, I will use this opportunity to provide some real examples of the gargantuan Rubik’s cube that is hospital pricing. I will be talking about hospital prices only, not the much lower prices of non-hospital alternatives including ambulatory surgical…
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Old News: Transgenders and Bathrooms. New News: Taxpayer-Funded Gender Reassignment Surgery
by James A. Bacon I’m surprised this hasn’t caused an uproar yet: In his newly revised budget, Governor Ralph Northam wants to guarantee that transgender enrollees in Virginia’s expanded Medicaid program have access to “gender-affirming” care. “This is an important equity issue and a critical part of making our commonwealth welcoming and inclusive of all,”…
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Important Changes in Healthcare Billing and Price Transparency
by James C. Sherlock A lot happened right before the New Year to change the rules for healthcare billing and pricing. Balance Billing In one of the events, new federal law buried in the end of year, 5,600-page $900 billion COVID-19 federal relief legislation bans balance billing to patients. “Surprise” billing for the balance due after an…
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COVID Has Exposed Massive Failures in Governance
by James C. Sherlock In a comment to my previous post, we saw a statement “most parents are happy with the education their kids are getting.” That is no longer true. Polls say overwhelmingly it is not. On a personal note, my two grandsons in Albemarle County schools, twin seniors, haven’t set foot in…
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Healthcare Spending Drives Growth in Virginia Budget over Last 10 Years
by James C. Sherlock On December 16, the Director of the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget provided a briefing for the Joint Meeting of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, the House Appropriations Committee, and the House Finance Committee. The subject was the Governor’s proposed amendments to the 2020-2022 Biennial Budget. The Governor submitted…
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Biting the Hand
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Earlier this week, the governor had a ceremonial signing for the Marcus David Peters bill. This is the legislation that establishes a system to alert authorities of someone in a mental health crisis in order that mental health professionals can respond rather than just police. It is named after a young Richmond…
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Virginia Legislative Black Caucus Sits Idle While Constituents Suffer and Die
by James C. Sherlock I have been attempting to improve healthcare access, affordability and competition, which improves both access and affordability, in Virginia for 15 years, especially for the benefit of the poor. I have seen the Governor’s office and members of the Virginia General Assembly (especially Democrats on health care issues) continue to bow to…
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NoPlan Northam Readies Random Restrictions
By DJ Rippert Here we go again. The Richmond Times Dispatch is reporting that Governor Ralph “NoPlan” Northam signaled a possible increase in COVID-19 restrictions during an interview with CNBC yesterday (Dec 7). Northam is quoted as saying, “We’re actively discussing on how to mitigate the numbers, and we’ll take further measures if we need…
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Bacon Bits on a Snowy Day
Another free clinic closes. Harrisonburg’s Free Clinic is going out of business after 30 years of providing medical care to low-income, uninsured adults. The clinic’s board attributed the decision in part to the decline in the number of patients resulting from Virginia’s Medicaid expansion. The clinic had 600 patients before expansion and 90 patients afterward,…
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Southwest VA’s Health Crisis Began Before the Pandemic
by Carol J. Bova The looming COVID-19 hospital crisis in Southwest Virginia was set in motion long before the pandemic. To begin with, the region’s health indicators and outcomes generally are much worse than the state average. Two indicators particularly impact the COVID-19 epidemic: Every county in the Southwest Virginia Health Authority service area has…