First Edition: December 4, 2014

Kaiser Health News: Who Is Getting ACA Insurance – And Who Isn’t
A story on NPR earlier this week described the “family glitch” in the Affordable Care Act. That’s when people can’t afford their insurance at work but make too much to qualify for subsidies in the new insurance exchanges. Many of these mostly middle-income Americans will remain uninsured. It also got us wondering, who else is being left out by the health law? And who is getting coverage? (Rovner, 12/4)

Kaiser Health News: Growth In U.S. Health Spending In 2013 Is Lowest Since 1960
National health spending grew 3.6 percent in 2013, the lowest annual increase since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began tracking the statistic in 1960, officials said Wednesday. Spending slowed for private health insurance, Medicare, hospitals, physicians and clinical services and out-of-pocket spending by consumers. However, it accelerated for Medicaid and for prescription drugs, according to the report, published online by the journal Health Affairs. (Carey, 12/3)

Kaiser Health News: In New York, Video Chat Trumps Quarantine To Combat TB
Thirty-four-year-old Karim works long days as an investment adviser, and when he doesn’t burn the midnight oil, he plays basketball or goes to the gym, hangs out with friends, or heads to coffee shops. You wouldn’t know he has an especially tough-to-treat illness. “I have multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis,” he explains. It’s called that, because at least two of the most potent drugs conventionally used to squelch the tuberculosis bacterium don’t work on the strain of the illness that Karim has. So he needs to take a combination of drugs, with harsher side effects, for 18 months. That’s two to three times longer than the traditional treatment for tuberculosis. (Mogul, 12/3)

The New York Times: Health Spending Rises Only Modestly
Spending on health care in the United States grew in 2013 at the lowest rate since the federal government began tracking it in 1960, the Obama administration said Wednesday. It was the fifth straight year of exceptionally small increases in the closely watched indicator. The data defied critics who had said such slow growth would not continue for long once the recession ended in mid-2009. (Pear, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: Health Spending Grew 3.6% In 2013, Slowest Pace On Record, U.S. Says
Health spending in the U.S. grew in 2013 at the slowest rate ever recorded, a new government study indicates, marking the extension of a historic slowdown in medical spending that began after the last recession. Total spending on healthcare increased just 3.6 percent last year to $2.9 trillion, according to the study from independent analysts at the Department of Health and Human Services. That is down from 4.1% percent in 2012 and way down from 2002, when health spending increased by nearly 10%. (Levey, 12/3)

USA Today: Health Care Spending Grows At Lowest-Ever Rate
Health care spending in the U.S. grew last year at the lowest rate ever recorded, due in part to the Affordable Care Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Wednesday. The slowing growth in health care spending to 3.6 percent from 4.1 percent in 2012 was attributed to factors including relatively slow economic growth and more gradual increases in private health insurance and Medicare spending, the CMS said. (Ungar and O'Donnell, 12/3)

The Wall Street Journal: More Cost Of Health Care Shifts To Consumers
Americans increasingly have to dig into their own pockets to pay for medical care, a shift that is helping to curb the growth in health spending by employers and the government. The trend is being accelerated by the Affordable Care Act because many private plans sold by the law’s health exchanges come with hefty out-of-pocket costs, which prompt some people to delay or put off seeking care. (Armour, 12/3)

USA Today: Obamacare Lawsuit Tests 'Power Of The Purse'
Earlier this year, the Obama administration quietly moved nearly $4 million in health insurance subsidy payments from one Treasury account to another. The budget director explained action in terms of "efficiency." But the House of Representatives says the transfer skirted the law and violated the Constitution — and is asking a court to strike down part of the Affordable Care Act as a result. That argument comes from a lawsuit filed by the House of Representatives last month as it attacks Obamacare on two fronts. The first, long-debated claim is that Obama did not have the power to delay a provision requiring large employers to provide health insurance for full-time employees. (Korte, 12/3)

The Washington Post: Despite Fixes, Obamacare’s Small Business Site Still Isn’t Luring Employers. What Gives?
After a laundry list of glitches popped up last year, Obama administration officials set to work to fix the health law’s online insurance marketplace for small businesses. Now, two weeks after re-launching the federal exchange, it appears they have ironed out most of the technical problems. Now they have a different problem on their hands, one that no team of software engineers can solve: Disinterest from small employers. (Harrison, 12/3)

USA Today: Removing The Glitches From The Affordable Care Act
As a software engineer in this outer suburb of Washington, Sanjay Singh was literally and figuratively outside the Beltway in 2008 when the Affordable Care Act was finalized on Capitol Hill. That didn't matter to the self-described "public policy geek." He pored over the Senate Finance Committee's markup of the legislation and sat riveted in front of C-Span during the Senate markup of the health law. ... Six years later, a guy who made less than $200 a month in 1991 writing software code in India has a company with multimillion-dollar contracts with Massachusetts for its insurance marketplace and the federal government to run the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchange. (O'Donnell, 12/3)

The Associated Press: Health Law Sign-Ups Slowed Over Thanksgiving
Health insurance sign-ups through HealthCare.gov slowed over Thanksgiving week, the Obama administration said Wednesday. But they’re not hitting the panic button yet. A Thanksgiving slowdown was expected, because consumers are traveling, spending time with family, and going shopping. (12/3)

The Associated Press: Baseball Player To Be In Radio Ad For Health Care
A player for the Frederick Keys baseball team will be featured in a radio ad to urge Maryland residents to enroll in health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Maryland Health Care for All and the Frederick Keys are announcing the ad campaign on Thursday at the Keys’ stadium in Frederick. (12/4)

Politico: Paul Ryan’s Plan: Broad Vision And Small Steps
In an interview with POLITICO on Wednesday, the Wisconsin Republican said he’s going to use his new perch in the House to pursue what he calls “phase one” of tax reform — focusing only on the business Tax Code — while understanding that he’s not going to get it all while President Barack Obama is in office. But that doesn’t mean he’s giving up on the big ideas he’s pitching to shape the Republican Party’s agenda for 2016 — and possibly keep his options open for a White House run of his own. He’ll keep talking up his Medicare premium support plan and repeal of Obamacare, even though he doesn’t expect either has a shot before the end of Obama’s term. (Faler and Haberkorn, 12/3)

The Washington Post: Obama, Looking To Mend Fences With Congress, Is Reaching Out. To Democrats.
President Obama and his closest aides have determined that their best chance of success in the next two years will depend on improved relationships on Capitol Hill, but their behind-the-scenes efforts are more focused on Obama’s own party rather than the Republicans who are about to take full charge of Congress in January. ... On the Republican side, much of the outreach has come from Cabinet members and other senior administration officials. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell hosted a November breakfast for the top Republicans and Democrats on committees that oversee her agency. (Eilperin, 12/3)

The Washington Post: Harkin: We Should Have Done Single Payer Health Reform
Veteran Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) has a less-than-glowing review of the Affordable Care Act — which he helped write and pass in 2010 — and in his final days in Congress is suggesting that Democrats should have considered scrapping the bill altogether. (DelReal, 12/3)

The Associated Press: Advocates Urge Swift Senate Vote On Disability Aid
Supporters of legislation that would allow Americans with disabilities to open tax-free savings accounts to pay for long-term expenses are urging a swift vote in the Senate after the House overwhelmingly passed the bill. (12/4)

The Wall Street Journal: New Medicare Rules Aim To Reduce Abuse
The Obama administration on Wednesday strengthened Medicare’s authority to kick doctors and other medical providers out of the federal program for abusively billing the government. The move represents a significant shift in how the government tackles waste in Medicare, the insurance program for the elderly and disabled. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the main part of Medicare issued $45.8 billion in improper payments, representing nearly 13 percent of its total spending. (Adamy, 12/3)

The Associated Press: Medicare Advantage Enrollment Deadline Looms
Millions of Medicare Advantage customers are fast approaching a deadline for a task they’d rather avoid: Researching and then settling on coverage plans for 2015. The annual enrollment window for the privately run versions of the government’s Medicare program for the elderly and disabled people closes on Sunday. (12/3)

The New York Times: UPS Suit Hinges On An Ambiguous Pregnancy Law
A Supreme Court argument on Wednesday in a pregnancy discrimination case against United Parcel Service had, for the most part, the arid quality of a logic problem, with the justices wrestling with an ambiguous federal law. But near the end of the hourlong argument, Justice Elena Kagan confronted a lawyer for UPS. (Liptak, 12/3)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Pregnant UPS Worker’s Case
The court tread somewhat gingerly through an hour of technical arguments in the case of Peggy Young of Lorton, a former driver for United Parcel Service (UPS). She charges that the company violated federal law when it refused to temporarily change her duties after a doctor suggested she not lift heavy packages. (Barnes, 12/3)

USA Today: Pregnancy Discrimination Claim Faces High-Court Hurdle
The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday to find a clear reason why pregnant women deserve accommodations at work. Faced with Peggy Young's lawsuit against United Parcel Service for refusing to give her light duty during her pregnancy, conservative justices said she was seeking a form of "most favored nation" status used in trade agreements — treatment equal to the best-treated workers. (Wolf, 12/3)

The Associated Press: Health Insurer WellPoint Switches Name To Anthem
The nation’s second-largest health insurer has changed its corporate name to Anthem from Wellpoint to reflect a label familiar to consumers shopping for coverage. The Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer sells insurance in several states under the Anthem brand, which was the company’s corporate name before it bought WellPoint Health Networks a decade ago. It sells no plans under the WellPoint name. ... Anthem Inc. is one of the biggest players on the health care overhaul’s public insurance exchanges. These exchanges are pushing insurers to sell more coverage directly to consumers instead of through employers. (12/3)

The Washington Post: VA Whistleblowers Honored As Public Servants Of The Year
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) honored three Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) whistleblowers Wednesday, all physicians who had key roles in uncovering major issues at VA facilities. Because they and other whistleblowers came forward, problems such as the cover-up of long wait times for veterans seeking medical care were exposed. The wait-time scandal led to the resignation of the VA secretary and legislation providing the department with additional resources to meet patient needs. (Davidson, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: Truvada, A Pill To Fight HIV, Stirs Controversy Among Gays
It would have seemed the stuff of fantasy in the dark days of the 1980s, when an AIDS diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence: a pill, taken daily, that could protect against HIV infection. But today, such a drug exists. The blue tablet, marketed as Truvada, has been available to people at risk of being exposed to HIV since 2012. ... It could have a dramatic effect in Los Angeles County, where about 47,000 people are known to live with HIV. Contracting the virus is no longer a death sentence because of a cocktail of drugs that suppress it, but the county still reports more than 1,000 new HIV infections each year. (Brown and Flores, 12/3)

The Washington Post: Va. Health Board To Vote On Advancing Review Of Abortion Clinic Rules
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Wednesday appointed a former lawmaker and abortion rights advocate to the Board of Health in time for a vote Thursday on whether the commonwealth will begin to overhaul regulations of abortion providers. (Portnoy, 12/3)

Los Angeles Times: Gov. Jerry Brown Considering Expanding Medi-Cal To Immigrants
Gov. Jerry Brown is considering expanding state-funded Medi-Cal coverage to residents shielded from deportation under President Obama’s new immigration policies. Nancy McFadden, the governor’s top policy aide, said that possibility is under review by the Brown administration, but implied that the potential cost would be a factor in the decision. (Willon, 12/3)