Health On The Hill – June 15, 2010
The Senate is debating ways to reverse a 21 percent cut in Medicare physician payments that began on June 1. The legislation would also include additional Medicaid money for states.
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The Senate is debating ways to reverse a 21 percent cut in Medicare physician payments that began on June 1. The legislation would also include additional Medicaid money for states.
A bill before Congress that would extend richer federal Medicaid assistance to states has now become an issue in the Kansas governor's race.
Administration officials tout the Medicare drug rebate as an early and tangible benefit of health reform while Senate Democrats continue trying to advance a legislative package that includes the Medicare physician payment fix and, potentially, an extension of enhanced Medicaid funding for states.
Much of this week's major health policy news stems directly from Congress' unfinished business related to the Medicare 'doc fix' as well as the House Democrats' decision not to include enhanced Medicaid funding and COBRA benefit subsidies in their sweeping jobs bill.
Challenges from conservative Democrats forced party leaders this week to cut some major spending programs, such as extending COBRA benefits for workers being laid off and providing extra money to state Medicaid programs.
The House of Representatives may vote on legislation this week that would stop a scheduled June 1 payment cut for doctors who accept Medicare physicians.
Now that the health care bill is law, an array of groups -- representing doctors, insurers, small businesses and others -- have switched to their post-passage game plans. Among their top goals: Helping shape the all-important regulations being written by the Obama administration.
Obama administration officials, touting $2.5 billion recovered from Medicare overpayments and fraud, immediately turned to talk of how health reform could ensure bigger successes in the future.
People who are dying currently can't get Medicare to pay for hospice care if they continue aggressive curative treatment. But the new health overhaul law could lead to a major change in olicy that allows both hospice and curative care.
Today, we begin a new Friday afternoon feature: a wrap-up of the week's major health policy news coverage.
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services confirms that some discounts states received from drugmakers will now be shifted to the federal government.
Former physical education teacher Andrew Jones, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, spent five years in nursing homes in Georgia and Connecticut. The 56-year-old was able to move out of the nursing home system in 2009 with the help of a federally-funded state program, known as "Money Follows the Person."
A program, known as "Money Follows the Person," aims to help elderly and disabled people in nursing homes live on their own and save tens of millions of dollars for Medicaid. But many states are having trouble finding affordable housing, and fewer than 6,000 people have moved. The goal is 37,000 by 2013.
The new health care law could shift billions of dollars from cash-strapped states to the federal government by changing the way Medicaid prescription drug rebates are treated.
In Kansas, cuts to Medicaid in-home services for the elderly produce quick consequences for some people who have had to move out of their apartments and into nursing homes.
Medicaid patients in traditional fee-for-service care get some services at two to three times the frequency of those who are in managed care, a preliminary state report suggests. What it doesn't say: Is that good or bad?
The White House released a copy of the memo sent by President Barack Obama to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on hospital visitors' rights, including those for same-sex partners of patients.
The TennCare cuts, which followed the resolution of a long-running court battle, affected mostly elderly or disabled residents, including approximately 37,000 who had relied on the state program for all their health care needs.
While doctors are worrying a lot about whether Congress will block the 21 percent scheduled cut in Medicare payments, a fix to another public health program is raising another question.
State officials like the amount of increased federal spending in the new health care law, but they worry that their costs could go up and their workload will become heavier.
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