Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: December 3, 2014
Kaiser Health News: Consumers Will Pay More Out Of Pocket Next Year For Specialty Drugs
Americans with health coverage – including those who buy it through government insurance exchanges and Medicare beneficiaries – are likely to pay more out-of-pocket next year for so-called “specialty drugs,” which treat complex conditions, according to two studies from consulting firm Avalere Health. (Appleby, 12/2)
Kaiser Health News: One Man Explains Why He Is Still Uninsured
When the Affordable Care Act rolled out last year, Californians enrolled in both Covered California and expanded Medi-Cal in high numbers. But there are still millions without insurance. Undocumented people don’t qualify for Obamacare benefits. Many others still find coverage too expensive or face other obstacles to enrolling. One of those people is Leaburn Alexander. I meet up with him at 6 a.m. as he is finishing his shift as the night janitor at a hotel near the San Francisco Airport. He clocks out just in time to catch the hotel’s shuttle back to SFO, where he will catch a bus. (Morehouse, 12/3)
The Wall Street Journal: Rate Falls For Often-Deadly Ailments Acquired In U.S. Hospitals
The incidence of often-deadly ailments that patients fall prey to inside U.S. hospitals fell by 17% between 2010 and 2013, the Obama administration said Tuesday. Such accidental ailments include infections, falls and adverse reactions to drugs. The administration estimates that the decline resulted in as many as 50,000 fewer people dying while hospitalized over the three-year period. (Radnofsky, 12/2)
Los Angeles Times: Obama Administration Announces Major Decline In Medical Errors
Infections and other medical errors that harm patients in hospitals have declined significantly, the Obama administration said Tuesday, hailing the progress as a sign that new efforts to improve patients' safety are bearing fruit. From 2010 to 2013, so-called hospital-acquired conditions declined 17%, according to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services. (Levey, 12/2)
The Washington Post's Wonkblog: Hospitals Are Killing Tens Of Thousands Fewer People
Wide-ranging efforts to make hospital care safer have resulted in an estimated 50,000 fewer patients dying because of avoidable errors in the past three years, according to a new report presented by government and industry officials on Tuesday. (Millman, 12/2)
Los Angeles Times: Poll: Nearly 4 In 10 Say California Obamacare Exchange Not Working Well
Nearly four in 10 Californians say the state's health exchange isn't working well as the second open enrollment gets underway, a new survey shows. The results from the Public Policy Institute of California survey may reflect persistent service problems experienced by some consumers as well as continued partisan opposition to the federal overhaul. (Terhune, 12/2)
The Washington Post: Wyoming’s Republican Governor Will Push To Expand Medicaid
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R) was once among the handful of state executives to sue the federal government over the Affordable Care Act. Now, he says he wants his state to expand Medicaid under the ACA to cover thousands of low-income residents. In a Monday press conference, Mead said he would press the state legislature to act on a Medicaid expansion plan put forward last week by the state Department of Health. (Wilson, 12/2)
USA Today: Kathleen Sebelius: Jonathan Gruber? Who?
Former Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, disputing the description of MIT professor Jonathan Gruber as an architect of the Affordable Care Act, says she had never met with him and minimized the significance of his controversial comments describing passage of the law. Gruber, a prominent health economist and federal consultant, is scheduled to testify before a House committee next week about his remarks that the 2010 law deliberately was drafted "in a tortured way" to obscure the reality that it created a system in which "healthy people pay in and sick people get money." (Page, 12/2)
The Washington Post: Watchdog’s View: HHS Inspector General Talks Healthcare.gov, Ebola, Obamacare
Daniel Levinson has served as inspector general of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department since 2005, working for two presidents, monitoring two of the largest Medicare expansions in U.S. history and keeping watch of an organization that accounted for about $1 trillion in federal spending this year. (Hicks, 12/2)
The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: McConnell: Supreme Court Is Best Hope For Obamacare ‘Do Over’
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Tuesday said the Senate is likely to vote on a series of measures to pick apart the Affordable Care Act starting next year, but pointed to a pending court case as the best opportunity to disassemble President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law. “Who may ultimately take it down is the Supreme Court of the United States,” Mr. McConnell said at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council annual meeting. “If that were to be the case, I would assume that you could have a mulligan here, a major do-over of the whole thing–that opportunity presented to us by the Supreme Court, as opposed to actually getting the president to sign a full repeal which is not likely to happen.” (Sparshott, 12/2)
The New York Times: Uncertainty In Washington Poses Long List Of Economic Perils
As House Republicans mull another round of fiscal brinkmanship with President Obama, a dark cloud is threatening to return to otherwise clearing economic skies: fiscal and political uncertainty. ... On March 28, unless lawmakers act, physician reimbursements from Medicare drop off a cliff. ... Then on Sept. 30, the entire Children’s Health Insurance Program faces its expiration. A few days later, across-the-board spending cuts loom once again. (Weisman, 12/2)
The Associated Press: Bipartisan Bill To Widen Federal Help For Disabled
Congress is poised to allow Americans with disabilities to open tax-sheltered bank accounts to pay for certain long-term expenses — the broadest legislation to help the disabled in a quarter-century. The House was set to vote Wednesday on the bill, called the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, which stands out in a bitterly divided Congress for its wide-ranging support. First introduced in 2006, the legislation now lists an overwhelming 85 percent of Congress as co-sponsors, even after a conservative group criticized it as "decisive step in expanding the welfare state. " (Yen, 12/3)
NPR: Did UPS Discriminate Against A Pregnant Worker By Letting Her Go?
Women's reproductive rights are once again before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday. Only this time, pregnancy discrimination is the issue and pro-life and pro-choice groups are on the same side, opposed by business groups. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that an employer that does not include pregnancy in its disability plan is not discriminating based on gender; it's just omitting coverage for one disability. Congress quickly amended the sex-discrimination law to ban discrimination based on pregnancy. But since then, most appeals courts have interpreted the law narrowly. Wednesday's case is a test of what is now required under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. (Totenberg, 12/3)
The Wall Street Journal's Pharmalot: A Drug Maker Uses Doctors With Troubled Pasts To Promote A Painkiller
An analysis of payments to physicians by Insys Therapeutics, a small drug maker that markets a powerful, but highly restricted painkiller, found that five of the 20 doctors who received the most money recently faced legal or disciplinary action, The New York Times writes. And some of the physicians had allegedly prescribed painkillers inappropriately. Moreover, many of the 20 highly paid doctors, who were paid for consulting, travel or meals, were also among the top Subsys prescribers, according to the Times analysis, which relied on filings with the federal government Open Payments database, as well as internal Insys documents and prescribing information from Tricare, which is the health insurance program for military families. (Silverman, 12/2)
The Washington Post: The 2015 Outlook For States Is Stable, Fitch Finds
The toughest challenge ahead for states in the coming year is Medicaid, “the area of state budgets that is usually the most difficult to control.” While states have been able to contain Medicaid costs in recent years, the introduction of the president’s health-care reform law and its Medicaid expansion introduces new variables for budget managers to grapple with, [credit rating agency] Fitch finds. (Chokshi, 12/2)
The Associated Press: Ohio Bill Would Shield Doctors Who Say ‘My Fault’
Doctors talking privately to patients or families after a medical mishap could acknowledge responsibility or even admit a mistake without that conversation being used against them later in court, according to a proposal in the Ohio General Assembly pushed by physicians. (12/2)
Los Angeles Times: Hospitals Grapple With Challenge In Caring For Homeless
Biederman's study, published in the Journal of Community Health Nursing, found that homeless patients were more likely to be readmitted to "safety net" hospitals when they had no safe place to recover from illnesses. Sending them to a homeless shelter, a boardinghouse or back to the street did not provide the security and medical attention they needed. The patients in the study complained of developing infections in shelters. Their pain medications would be stolen. They couldn't handle stairs or had other impediments. (Jacobson, 12/2)
