Chiropractic Breakthrough

This week Aetna and WellPoint will follow UnitedHealth Group in reporting their second-quarter earnings. UnitedHealth, which announced its results last week, set the bar high for its fellow companies by reporting a 31 percent increase in profits for the three months that ended June 30.

One of the hottest concepts to emerge from the discussions about how best to overhaul the nation’s health care system is accountable care organizations. The idea is to encourage groups of doctors or hospitals to work together to oversee medical care so quality improves and costs go down. Having captured the fancy of Washington, the organizations are even a part of the new health care law.

A steep drop-off in private funds illustrates the competition under way for money as public health priorities shift. Shortly after the first lady kicked off the “Let’s Move” program, the administration awarded more funds to fight obesity than tobacco through two big new money sources for preventive health. The funds, totaling $1.15 billion, came from economic stimulus and health care reform legislation. They still provided more than $200 million for tobacco-use prevention, but much more to grapple with obesity.

Two weeks after taking office, Dr. Donald Berwick the new chief of CMS is struggling to tamp down a furor over past statements in which he discussed the rationing of health care and expressed affection for the British health care system. He is finding his ability to do his job clouded by the circumstances of his appointment, with many Republicans in open revolt over President Obama’s decision to place him in the post without a Senate confirmation vote.

The new health care law requires health insurers to spend at least 80% of every dollar collected in premiums on the welfare of patients. The calculation of the medical-loss ratio is crucial to insurance companies, because the law requires them to refund money to consumers if they spend too much on administrative costs. An intense effort is now under way by insurance companies to retool this provision and state regulators are only now deciding what precisely it means.

Lucky Charms. Froot Loops. Cocoa Pebbles. A frozen dinner with corn dog and fries. McDonald’s Happy Meals have all been identified by food companies as healthy choices they can advertise to children under a 3-year-old initiative by the food industry to fight childhood obesity. Now an effort by the federal government to forge tougher advertising standards that favor more healthful products has become stalled amid industry opposition and deep divisions among regulators.

As insurers try to steer more patients to doctors deemed less expensive or judged to provide better care, physicians and medical organizations are questioning the accuracy of these evaluations. In a sharply worded letter sent Monday to the nation’s largest health insurance companies, the AMA and 47 medical societies called on the insurers to make public how they assessed doctors’ performance and to allow the insurers’ methods to be reviewed by independent parties.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has issued a new set of medical guidelines, which state that most women who have had Caesarean sections in the past can safely give birth the normal way later. In recent years hospitals, doctors and insurers have been refusing to let them even try, insisting on repeat Caesareans instead.

Michelle Obama has enlisted Major League Baseball and its players’ association for a new public service advertising campaign to promote her program to eliminate childhood obesity. The campaign consists of 30 television and 30 radio spots, customized for each of the league’s teams. Other versions of television and radio ads will be distributed nationally in markets with no local team.

Less than four months after Congress approved historic health care reform legislation, the Obama administration has been making good progress in bringing some early benefits to fruition and issuing rules to guide the reform process. Despite all of the critics’ hype and scare tactics, some polls suggest that the public perception of reform is slowly improving.