: Navigating The Health Care Maze [Peter Kim] and his wife resorted to catastrophic coverage, paying out of pocket for routine medical care — until they discovered the health insurance exchange that Massachusetts set up in 2006. A linchpin of the state law passed under Mitt Romney as governor, which requires most residents to have health coverage, the exchange is an online marketplace meant to simplify buying insurance and thus help people find a plan they can afford. If the Supreme Court upholds President Obama’s federal health care law in a decision expected this month, proponents say that exchanges will be a crucial tool for extending insurance to most Americans (Goodnough, 6/12).
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: Steep Rise In Health Costs Projected Economists have been puzzling over whether a three-year slowdown in the growth of health-care spending, prompted by the economy, portends a permanent change. Federal projections indicate that isn’t the case (Radnofsky, 6/12).
: Gov’t. Report: With Or Without Obama’s Law, US Health Care Costs Will Keep Outpacing The Economy Despite a recent easing of medical costs, the nation’s health care spending will keep outpacing economic growth for the foreseeable future, government experts said Tuesday in a forecast that signals more upheaval for Medicare and Medicaid, as well as private insurance (6/12).
: Government Forecasts Modest Health Spending Growth The annual growth rate for U.S. healthcare spending will hover near historic lows in 2013 and rise at a modest pace for much of the next decade, even if the Supreme Court allows the expansion of coverage to millions more Americans to proceed, a government report said on Tuesday (Morgan, 6/12).
: Projections: ACA Will Have Small Impact On Spending Growth Health care spending will spike in 2014 as millions of people gain coverage, but the overall rate of annual growth for the decade ending in 2021 will average 5.7 percent — 0.9 percentage point faster than the economy, according to new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services projections released Wednesday (Dobias, 6/12).
: Obama Doesn’t Emphasize Health Care, Stimulus Because GOP Succeeded In Making Them Unpopular Fighting for re-election, President Barack Obama is playing down his historic health care overhaul and the multibillion-dollar recession-fighting stimulus — two landmark efforts of his first three years in office. Those signature policies are unpopular, and voters clearly want the candidates to focus instead on jobs (6/12).
: GOP Adjusts Health Care Strategy The episode underscores both the GOP’s recognition that it needs to be ready to respond to the Supreme Court’s looming decision on the health care law and the delicacy with which Republicans must fashion that response. There’s no time to waste: GOP leaders plan to bookend July with a weeklong debate on health care after the court releases its ruling in late June and a tax-cut fight at the end of the month (Sherman and Allen, 6/12).
: Romney Touts Healthcare Plans Ahead Of Supreme Court Ruling With the Supreme Court on the verge of determining the fate of President Obama’s healthcare overhaul, Mitt Romney sought to position himself Tuesday as a champion of affordable coverage for the middle class. In remarks to a few hundred supporters in the warehouse of an air-filter maker, Romney expanded on his pledge not just to repeal “Obamacare,” but to replace it (Finnegan, 6/12).
: Romney Outlines Plan To Make Health-Care System Like ‘Consumer Market’ Addressing supporters in Orlando, Romney fleshed out a plan that he proposed earlier, one that would apply free-enterprise principles to the nation’s health-care system rather than operate it like a “government-managed utility,” letting competition drive down prices and increase quality. He also vowed to divert federal Medicaid money and other federal funding to state governments, making them responsible for covering the uninsured. And he promised that his plan would help cover people with preexisting conditions, one of the more popular components of Obama’s law (Rucker, 6/12).
: Romney Sees ‘Consumer’ Healthcare After Obama Plan Republican Mitt Romney on Tuesday laid out his vision for a “consumer market” healthcare approach to replace President Barack Obama’s sweeping reform law, whether or not the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the legislation this month. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee told supporters in Orlando, Florida, that he would prevent people with pre-existing medical conditions with a history of health coverage from losing their insurance (6/12).
: Promising The End Of ‘ObamaCare,’ Romney Health Care Vision Short On Detail The presumptive Republican presidential nominee promised to help maintain coverage for those with pre-existing health conditions and expand tax breaks to individuals wishing to purchase health insurance directly, instead of through their employer. In some cases, his health care proposal entails turning over the problem to individual states (6/12).
: Religious Leaders Ask HHS To Broaden Birth Control Exemption A coalition of nearly 150 religious leaders, led by conservative Protestants, have petitioned the Obama administration to broaden the exemption that allows churches and some religious organizations to avoid a controversial new mandate that all health care insurers provide free contraception coverage (Gibson, 6/12).
: Use Of Imaging Tests Soars, Raising Questions On Radiation Risk Advanced imaging adds about $100 billion to U.S. medical bills each year, said study leader Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist and epidemiologist at UC San Francisco. There is widespread agreement in the medical community that imaging tests are overutilized, particularly CT scans (Bardin, 6/12).
: CalPERS Health Premiums Expected To Jump Average Of 9.6% In 2013 California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the third-largest purchaser of health benefits in the country, said its health premiums next year are expected to increase 9.6% on average for nearly 1.3 million members. These recommended rates from the CalPERS pension and health benefits committee await full board approval Wednesday. If adopted, the rates for various health plans would take affect Jan. 1 (Terhune, 6/12).
: NYC Health Board Likes Big Drink Ban Proposal New York City’s Board of Health signaled strong support Tuesday for the mayor’s plan to fight obesity by banning the sale of large, sugary beverages at local restaurants (6/12).
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