When Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, told HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that he worried Obamacare’s implementation was headed for a “train wreck,” she publicly promised to bring him into the loop.
Turns out that Sebelius kept her word and has been giving Baucus one-on-one briefings on the law’s implementation every other week since his very public April 17 complaint about a lack of information. (Her staff promised synchronized press briefings implementation and has since declined to provide those.) The White House also has chipped in, sending Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to brief Baucus on the healthcare overhaul’s implementation (along with other issues) on alternating weeks from Sebelius’ briefings, according to his staff.
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The CMS has a growing health insurance exchange problem.
The authors of the 2010 federal healthcare overhaul never intended the federal government to operate most health insurance exchanges. But as the nation gears up for an expected 7 million new beneficiaries to make use of exchanges — about 85% of whom will require complex subsidies — 26 states have left their operations to the federal government.
And it’s beginning to look like the number of states hankering for a federal takeover could grow. A number of state-led exchanges are way behind schedule.
Are the feds up to the task, given that running something for more than half the country is a lot more complex than launching any one state exchange? Experts say local insurance market variations will stop the federal exchange builders from using cookie cutter economies of scale.
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Elections have consequences, right?
Although Democrats and their allied organizations have spent the weeks since the Nov. 6 election crowing that President Barack Obama's re-election decisively endorsed his approach to healthcare policy, some polls might cloud that picture.
For instance, a new Gallup poll taken after the election found a first-time outright majority opposing the federal government ensuring all Americans have health insurance. Fifty-four percent of Americans opposed such a government role, while 44% supported it.
The opposition to such federal action has grown 23 percentage points since 2000, while support for it plummeted by 22 percentage points. The drop in support for a federal health coverage role included a 10 percentage point decline since just 2008.
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A new study from the left-leaning Urban Institute says the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act relies on market-based principles to achieve its goals, which opponents of the law say they find puzzling.
Released Friday, the brief report from authors Randall Bovbjerg and Stan Dorn (PDF) starts with the premise that although critics of the 2010 law refer to it as a government takeover of the U.S. healthcare system, it is actually based on pro-competitive reforms reminiscent of the Reagan era.
“The argument that the ACA is market-based when the opponents say the market can't address healthcare is perplexing,” says Sean Riley, director of the health and human services task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council, a not-for-profit organization in Washington centered on free-enterprise principles and federalism at the state level.
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Cue the ominous legislation soundtrack.
Congressional Democrats welcomed Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan back to Capitol Hill through a day-long series of attacks on his plan to repeal the healthcare overhaul and add an insurance subsidy option to Medicare.
Like other Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took to the Senate floor to blast the Romney-Ryan campaign's healthcare plans that echo many of the provisions included in budgets Ryan authored as chairman of the Budget Committee.
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Did the door to compromise close for Catholic hospitals this week?
Even as the Obama administration attempts a delicate negotiation with Catholic hospitals and other religious-run institutions over the healthcare law's birth control mandate, speech after speech at the Democrats' nominating convention showed little interest in compromising on the issue.
“We ensured life-saving preventive care and the full range of reproductive services are now covered,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) in her primetime convention speech in reference to the inclusion of birth control within preventive services that all insurance policies are required to cover.
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Fifty shades of Medicare.
The addition of Paul Ryan to the Republican presidential ticket has led President Barack Obama to expand his Medicare focus on the stump. But his Medicare comments include an unexpected twist.
Conventional wisdom in Washington was that the selection of Ryan, chairman of the Budget Committee and author of two budget blueprints that would add an insurance subsidy component to Medicare, would open the Republican ticket to charges of trying to undermine Medicare. The healthcare program for seniors is traditionally a third-rail issue in Washington that politicians from both parties have studiously avoided. And now, Mitt Romney appeared to be following Ryan right onto the tracks.
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A week from today, the Republican National Committee will begin its four-day pep rally in Tampa, Fla. to nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as the GOP's candidates for president and vice president.
I'll be there with Gregg Blesch, Modern Healthcare's news editor, to bring you the week's healthcare-related news. Gregg will also join my colleague Rich Daly from Sept. 3-6 in Charlotte, N.C., to cover the Democratic National Convention.
This year, the GOP chose “A Better Future” as its theme, and the party is promoting a “Convention Without Walls” approach for the week, complete with mobile apps where users can receive live updates and video from the convention floor at the Tampa Bay Forum. Today the RNC released its schedule for the convention's first day, which will include remarks that night from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, and former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. And when is the last time you heard anything about the Oak Ridge Boys? They'll be singing the National Anthem next Monday afternoon.
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GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate sent a clear signal that Medicare will be a major issue in this presidential election, and President Barack Obama's remarks Sunday indicate he got the message.
Ryan, the 42-year-old chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, is the chief architect of a budget plan that made headlines in 2011 and 2012 for proposing a massive overhaul to the Medicare program. Any other choice for a vice president would not have nearly the same effect on healthcare policy issues as the Wisconsin Republican who recommends a premium support model—in which federal payments are made to health plans that consumers choose—to save the Medicare program. Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal differs from last year’s plan because it would give consumers a choice between premium support and the traditional Medicare program.
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Call it the awkward phase of the campaign.
This past week one of the most glaring examples of conflicts between core supporters of the President Barack Obama’s healthcare policies—feminists and religiously motivated social justice advocates—was on full display. As was his attempt to please both groups on opposite sides of a controversy spurred by his healthcare law that nearly all employers cover no-cost birth control.
It came this past Wednesday when Obama added a Catholic twist to his re-election campaign pitch for the healthcare overhaul that usually touts the birth control mandate as a standout component.
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Call it the awkward phase of the campaign.
This past week one of the most glaring examples of conflicts between core supporters of the President Barack Obama’s healthcare policies—feminists and religiously motivated social justice advocates—was on full display. As was his attempt to please both groups on opposite sides of a controversy spurred by his healthcare law that nearly all employers cover no-cost birth control.
It came this past Wednesday when Obama added a Catholic twist to his re-election campaign pitch for the healthcare overhaul that usually touts the birth control mandate as a standout component.
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