DL Open Thread: Sunday, April 7, 2024

A little detail from yesterday’s campaigning.  I arrive at this self-contained community. It’s gusty.  One of those oversized balloon things, an ‘I Love You’ balloon in the shape of a heart with golden plastic ‘legs’, blows down some lawns, crosses the street, and winds up in some shrubbery behind a massive Delaware Tire Center complex.

Hey, I’m never gonna write the Great American Novel,  felt it would be a shame not to share this.

But, I digress.

Yet Another Healthcare Plan Vampire:

The answer is a little-known data analytics firm called MultiPlan. It works with UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Aetna and other big insurers to decide how much so-called out-of-network medical providers should be paid. It promises to help contain medical costs using fair and independent analysis.

But a New York Times investigation, based on interviews and confidential documents, shows that MultiPlan and the insurance companies have a large and mostly hidden financial incentive to cut those reimbursements as much as possible, even if it means saddling patients with large bills. The formula for MultiPlan and the insurance companies is simple: The smaller the reimbursement, the larger their fee.

Here’s how it works: The most common way Americans get health coverage is through employers that “self-fund,” meaning they pay for their workers’ medical care with their own money. The employers contract with insurance companies to administer the plans and process claims. Most medical visits are with providers in a plan’s network, with rates set in advance.

But when employees see a provider outside the network, as Ms. Lawson did, many insurance companies consult with MultiPlan, which typically recommends that the employer pay less than the provider billed. The difference between the bill and the sum actually paid amounts to a savings for the employer. But, The Times found, it means big money for MultiPlan and the insurer, since both companies often charge the employer a percentage of the savings as a processing fee.

In some instances, the fees paid to an insurance company and MultiPlan for processing a claim far exceeded the amount paid to providers who treated the patient. Court records show, for example, that Cigna took in nearly $4.47 million from employers for processing claims from eight addiction treatment centers in California, while the centers received $2.56 million. MultiPlan pocketed $1.22 million.

Good Fracking?  We’re talking geothermal energy.  Wonder about the earthquakes, though…:

Geothermal capacity could increase 20-fold by 2050, generating 10 percent of the US’s electricity, according to a recent road map released by the US Department of Energy. Joe Biden’s administration has also funded new projects aimed at pushing forward the next generation of geothermal that aim to make the energy source available anywhere on America’s landmass, not just easy-to-reach hot springs.

“The US can lead the clean-energy future with continued innovation on next-generation technologies, from harnessing the power of the sun to the heat beneath our feet, and cracking the code to deploy them at scale,” said Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, who added that she saw “enormous potential” in geothermal.

Expanding the geothermal footprint to the entire US will take time, as well as plenty of money—the department of energy estimates as much as $250 billion will be needed for projects to become widespread across the country, providing a major source of clean power.

But advocates of geothermal say that such growth is within reach, because of a wave of geothermal technologies as well as government support. In February, the Biden administration announced $74 million for up to seven pilot projects to develop enhanced geothermal systems that, the government said, hold the potential for powering 65 million American homes.

Hey, just couldn’t find much that interested me this morning.  Perhaps you can help fill out this abbreviated column.

What do you want to talk about?