HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius may not have expected the series of federal health policy fastballs she faced in a recent interview on a national comedy show, but she managed to avoiding whiffing on all but a couple of them.
Sebelius faced a series of detailed questions on various implementation details of the Patient Protection and Affordable Act during her Jan. 23 appearance on “The Daily Show.”
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Been there, done that?
A year ago, President Barack Obama highlighted his administration's 2010 landmark health reform law when he delivered his annual State of the Union Address. That was just days after the newly sworn-in 112th Congress voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and Obama couldn't ignore it. “Now, I've heard rumors that a few of you have some concerns about the new healthcare law,” Obama quipped. “So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved,” he said, adding later that medical liability reform is one area on which both sides can agree.
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An important question for many supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is whether President Barack Obama will mention, and to what extent, the law during Tuesday's State of the Union address.
The measure is widely considered his leading domestic policy achievement, but news reports have noted the president rarely mentions it when speaking to the public. However, Obama regularly highlights its passage when addressing supporters.
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Comic books are simple, while healthcare policy is complex. That reality was illustrated by the recent release of a new graphic novel “Health Care Reform: What is it, why it is necessary and how it works.”
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In two months, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments to determine the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, with two hours devoted to the law's individual mandate. Now comes a new report funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—and prepared by researchers at the left-leaning Urban Institute—that shows what could happen if the individual mandate is eliminated.
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Among the myriad federal healthcare initiatives stemming from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, at least one highly anticipated program has fallen through the cracks. The 2010 law authorized the creation of pediatric accountable care organizations within Medicaid. Such pilot projects were supposed to start on Jan. 1.
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This week, HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced its Healthy New Year Video Challenge for 2012. The program invites consumers to submit video entries showing how they used health IT to improve their health—and achieve a new year's resolution (such as losing weight, quitting smoking or managing stress). It's the first in a series of consumer videos for 2012, according to the ONC.
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The U.S. can no longer separate the nation's health from the health of the world.
That was the message from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Thursday morning at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, where she spoke about HHS' Global Health Strategy.
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In 2012, several key deadlines and decision points in federal healthcare policymaking will have significant impacts on providers. But some of those deadlines remain a mystery.
One important as-yet-undetermined 2012 date is the deadline for states to provide the information proving they will have operational insurance exchanges as required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
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