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Health care reform 'fixes:' What does the House want to change? The Christian Science Monitor Share     With Republicans on the sidelines, the endgame for health care reform is playing out within divided House Democratic ranks, where a decisive vote is expected as early as this week. Since Senate Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority with the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R) of Massachusetts, Democratic leaders have decided to try to pass the Senate's version in the House – in part to avoid the Senate's procedural hurdles as much as possible. The problem is, many in the House don't like the Senate bill and won't pass it. The proposed solution has been a package of "fixes" to the Senate bill. More
Health bill picking up key votes Los Angeles Times Share
President Obama and Democratic leaders gathered momentum for their sweeping healthcare overhaul Wednesday, picking up support from Democratic factions where defections were most feared: liberals, abortion opponents and backbenchers. Working into the night to put the finishing touches on the legislation, Democratic leaders said they continued to expect the balloting to be a cliffhanger. More The tools to fight fraud in Maryland The Baltimore Sun Share
Last week, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration and Maryland's hospitals and small community providers forged a compromise over legislation to battle Medicaid fraud. If approved by the House and Senate, the measure is expected to save taxpayers $20 million next year and allow the state to more aggressively go after those who would knowingly file false claims with the government.But amazingly, the bill's passage is considered far from certain. More The future of physician-owned hospitals Association of Corporate Counsel Share
Physicians with an ownership interest in a hospital or physicians interested in investing in or opening a hospital should take heed of the proposed health reform bill. While no final bill exists yet, the versions passed by the House and Senate each contain language that will effectively make new physician-owned hospitals ineligible for Medicare reimbursement. The language would eliminate a Stark law exception -- allowing a physician to refer patients to a hospital he or she has an ownership interest in if the physician is authorized to perform services at the hospital -- for any hospital in which the physician invests after August 1, 2010. This prohibition would apply to all physician-owned hospitals that do not obtain Medicare reimbursement certification by the deadline. More Memo to Congress on health care reform: Fix Medicare first The Hill Share
As resolution on the health care reform process seems to be drawing near in Washington, the sand is running out of the hourglass for Medicare, already projected to be insolvent by 2017. The system significantly underpays physicians for necessary services to Medicare beneficiaries. Over the past 20 years, Congress has expanded Medicare benefits and authorized payment for important new technologies at the expense of physician services. More
The politics of health care passage The Washington Post Share
Even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) scrambles for the 216 "yes" votes she needs to pass President Obama's health care reform bill later this week, strategists on both sides of the partisan divide have begun to debate the political impact of what passage will mean. All sides agree that the overall bill is not particularly popular at the moment. Republicans ascribe that unpopularity to the fact that people know what's in the bill and don't like or want it. Democrats see the current poll numbers as evidence that they have lost the message war in the run-up to passage but once the bill moves through Congress and people become more educated about the legislation, the more they will like it. More State lawmakers try to head off health bill USA Today Share
In a backlash against President Obama's health care legislation that stretches from Virginia to California, lawmakers in more than two-thirds of the states are scrambling to undercut the bill before it even passes Congress.A host of other state legislatures also are considering new laws and promoting constitutional amendments that would limit federal requirements. Most follow Virginia's lead in nullifying the mandate on health insurance. Obama's bill would expand health coverage to 31 million Americans who currently don't have it and impose new regulations on the insurance industry. More Report: Massachusetts hospital costs on the rise again The Associated Press via the Boston Herald Share
Hospital costs in Massachusetts have increased steadily over the past decade and show little sign of slowing, according to a report released Tuesday. By 2007, the most recent year studied in the report, hospital costs had climbed to more than 55 percent above the U.S. average. That translated into per-person hospital costs in Massachusetts of $3,015 a year, compared to the U.S. average of $1,941, said Alan Sager, professor of health care finance at Boston University's School of Public Health and one of the report's authors. More With Medicaid cuts, doctors and patients drop out The New York Times Share
Dr. Saed J. Sahouri says his reimbursements from Medicaid were so low -- often no more than $25 per office visit -- that he was losing money every time a patient walked in his exam room. The final insult, he said, came when Michigan cut those payments by 8 percent last year to help close a gaping budget shortfall. It has not taken long for communities like Flint to feel the downstream effects of a nationwide torrent of state cuts to Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor and disabled. With states squeezing payments to providers even as the economy fuels explosive growth in enrollment, patients are finding it increasingly difficult to locate doctors and dentists who will accept their coverage. Inevitably, many defer care or wind up in hospital emergency rooms, which are required to take anyone in an urgent condition. More |
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