First Edition: January 21, 2015

Kaiser Health News: High Court Considers If Providers Can Sue States For Higher Medicaid Pay
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could block hospitals, doctors — or anyone else — from suing states over inadequate payment rates for providers who participate in the Medicaid program for low-income Americans. Federal law requires Medicaid, which covers 70 million people, to provide the same access to care as that given to people with private insurance. But many doctors avoid seeing Medicaid recipients, saying the program pays too little. That can lead to delays and difficulties in getting care for millions of poor people. (Galewitz, 1/21)

Kaiser Health News: Hatch Vows To Dismantle Health Law But Predicts Bipartisan Success On Other Issues
While Republicans cannot expect a full repeal of the health law while President Barack Obama remains in office, the GOP intends to “strike away at it, piece by piece,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday. But in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hatch also said he expected that Republican and Democratic lawmakers would work together on several other key pieces of health legislation. (Carey, 1/20)

Kaiser Health News: Insuring Your Health: Mass. Malpractice Reforms Offer Faster, More Open Process For Injured Patients
When a woman had gall bladder surgery at a Massachusetts hospital in 2013, doctors noticed something suspicious on a CT scan that they thought could be ovarian cancer. But the recommendation that the patient get a pelvic ultrasound fell through the cracks. Months later, she was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer. Normally, this type of medical mistake could mark the start of a protracted malpractice lawsuit. But in Massachusetts, where medical, legal and consumer groups have worked together in support of a recently enacted law that tries to preempt litigation by establishing a process and timeframe for discussing mistakes, that’s not what happened, according to her attorney who recounted the case in an interview. (Andrews, 1/20)

Los Angeles Times: 'State Of The Union Is Strong,' Obama Declares In Address
At times boastful, confident and even cocky, Obama appeared unfazed by his party’s electoral pounding in the midterm election less than three months ago or his year of slouching approval ratings. ... Obama pledged to veto any measures that would undo his sweeping immigration executive actions or his healthcare law. ... In the end, though, he returned to the heart of his message, an economic policy aimed at strengthening the middle class. (Hennessey and Parsons, 1/20)

The New York Times: In State Of The Union Speech, Obama Defiantly Sets An Ambitious Agenda
President Obama claimed credit on Tuesday for an improving economy and defiantly told his Republican adversaries in Congress to “turn the page” by supporting an expensive domestic agenda aimed at improving the fortunes of the middle class. ... In the speech, he promised that any attempt to roll back his health care law, an overhaul of regulations on Wall Street or his executive actions on immigration would also face vetoes. (Shear and Hirschfeld Davis, 1/20)

The Washington Post: President Obama, With Two Years To Go, Commits To Cementing A Liberal Legacy
Brimming with confidence, the president struck a colloquial tone as he rattled off a series of positive statistics about the country’s recent economic rebound. ...The question facing Obama is whether his final two years in the White House can come close to repeating the record of his first two. He has neither the Democratic majority that ushered through major bills revamping the nation’s fiscal and health-care systems, nor the sky-high poll ratings he had shortly after taking office. ... Another factor beyond the White House’s control is the much-anticipated Supreme Court ruling later this year that could undercut the federal subsidies that help millions of Americans buy plans under the Affordable Care Act. “The legacy of the president, and the health-care legacy of the president, depends on those nine people in the Supreme Court,” said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Eilperin, 1/20)

The Wall Street Journal: In State Of The Union, Obama Makes Middle-Class Pitch
While his party suffered significant setbacks in the November elections, the president arrived at the Capitol Tuesday night with some political momentum, with the economic outlook brightening and his job-approval ratings ticking upward. Some 46% of Americans approved of Mr. Obama’s job performance in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week, up from 40% in September. (Lee and McCain Nelson, 1/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Obama Calls For Medical-Research Expansion
President Barack Obama called for a new medical research push in his State of the Union address, which the White House says will include fighting antibiotic resistance and the pursuit of targeted therapy based on a patient’s genetic makeup. The beefed-up research into antibiotic resistance, while not further specified, would potentially include new medicines that could be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, and new ways to avoid antibiotics’ becoming less effective. The White House said the plan is to nearly double the federal investment into grappling with the issue of antibiotic resistance. (Burton, 1/20)

The Associated Press: Obama Vows Vetoes If GOP Seeks To Roll Back His Priorities
Republicans are hoping to use their newfound control of both chambers of Congress to nullify Obama's executive actions on immigration, and make major changes to Obama's health care law and to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul. But Obama says the U.S. can't put businesses or the economy at risk through government shutdowns. He says the U.S. must not take away Americans' health insurance, refight previous immigration battles or unravel new rules governing Wall Street. (1/20)

The New York Times: Republicans Have One Word For President’s Proposals And Veto Threats: ‘No’
“No” seems to be all anyone wants to say in this town anymore. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Obama enumerated policies that he opposed, from rolling back Wall Street regulations to exempting more businesses from their obligation to provide health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. To drive home his displeasure with the Republican agenda, the White House also issued two new veto threats in the hours before the president spoke — this time for bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and accelerate approval of natural gas pipeline construction. For their part, Republicans immediately rejected most of the proposals that were central to Mr. Obama’s address, saying he was obviously not serious about working with them to pass consequential bipartisan legislation. (Peters and Huetteman, 1/20)

The Washington Post: Sen. Joni Ernst Delivers Personal, Populist Republican Response To State Of The Union
Ernst pledged that the new GOP majority would reform Congress “to make it function again” and would pass “serious job-creation ideas,” naming the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline as a top priority. She also took a shot at Obama’s health-care law, saying that it was part of a “stale mind-set” and that Republicans would “keep fighting to repeal and replace” it. (Costa, 1/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Poor Oversight, Work Marred Health Site’s Launch, Report Says
The federal government skipped key contracting requirements when awarding hundreds of millions of dollars to build the troubled HealthCare.gov site, according to an inspector general’s report. The investigation published Tuesday by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health & Human Services found the federal government failed to probe fully the past performance of CGI Federal Inc., a subsidiary of a Canadian information technology firm, before awarding it a contract to construct basic parts of the insurance enrollment site. (Radnofsky, 1/20)

NPR: War Over Obamacare Heats Up In States
Oklahoma State Rep. Mike Ritze is a foot soldier — one of hundreds — in a passionate war over the Affordable Care Act that is reigniting as state legislatures convene across the country. The Republican lawmaker, a family doctor, has stood behind three anti-Obamacare bills supported by conservative groups in Oklahoma and other states. None has made it into law, but Ritze plans to pick up the fight in the 2015 legislative session that convenes in the Sooner state next month. (Schulte, 1/21)

The Associated Press: NY Health Exchange Sending Tax Statements
New York's health exchange says it is sending out more than 300,000 tax statements to households where someone enrolled for private health coverage through the exchange last year. The statements required under the federal Affordable Care Act are for use in filing federal tax returns for 2014 by those who enrolled through the exchange in a qualified insurance plan and are taking tax credits. (1/21)

Politico: House Leaders Sticking With Abortion Bill Despite Defections
House Republican leadership is planning to move forward with a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks, despite opposition from female lawmakers who fear the legislation is too harsh and could turn off young voters. (Sherman and French, 1/20)

Politico Pro: High Court Considers Providers’ Medicaid Pay Case
The Supreme Court weighed a challenge over Medicaid rates on Tuesday, focusing often skeptically on what remedies providers have to ensure they are paid adequately for services and whether state budgets would balloon if private parties were able to contest rates through the courts. (Pradhan, 1/20)

The Wall Street Journal: UnitedHealth Results Top Expectations On Revenue Growth
UnitedHealth Group Inc. said results in its December quarter topped expectations as nearly all of its segments posted revenue growth. Like its fellow health insurers, UnitedHealth has sought to contain costs related to medical care, particularly as expensive, high-profile treatments for hepatitis C and cancer enter the market. Last month, in a bid to explore expense-controlling options, the company unveiled a test program in which it will pay MD Anderson Cancer Center a flat rate for a year’s worth of treatment for certain patients. (Calia, 1/21)

USA Today: Surgery Costs Vary Wildly -- Even In Same Area
The cost of having a knee or hip replaced varies wildly and can be up to four times more in one place than another -— even in the same area, a report out Wednesday found. A total knee replacement averaged about $31,000 in 64 markets where Blue Cross Blue Shield analyzed its claims data. But in Dallas, it ranged from $16,772 to $61,584.86. Across the USA, knee replacements costs as little as $11,317 in Montgomery, Ala., and as much as $69,654 in New York City. (O'Donnell and Ungar, 1/21)

Los Angeles Times: CalPERS President Rob Feckner Is Reelected To 11th Term
During his long tenure, Feckner has steered CalPERS away from sometimes strident, anti-corporate activism; backed a campaign that successfully defeated a 2005 initiative that would have reduced some pension benefits; and helped the nearly $300-billion fund recover billions of dollars in losses from the recession of 2008-09 and its aftermath. ... It is also confronting the growing costs of providing promised lifetime health insurance to retirees and dealing with a gap of tens of billions of dollars in fund assets needed to pay for current and future retirement benefits to 1.7 million members. (Lifsher, 1/20)

The New York Times: Texas’ New Governor Echoes The Plans Of Perry
Democrats and health care advocates had hoped that Mr. Abbott would reverse Mr. Perry’s refusal to expand Medicaid in the state, which has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the country. But Mr. Abbott made it clear recently that he would not expand the government health insurance program for low-income and sick people, with a spokeswoman saying that he had “fought Obamacare and will continue to fight against it.” Such statements angered Democrats, many of whom worry that Mr. Abbott will continue to promote Mr. Perry’s small-government mantra, which they said fails to provide an adequate safety net for all. But Mr. Abbott’s approach has reassured Republicans, who control the Legislature and every top office and who argue that the Texas model has brought jobs and built a strong economy. (Fernandez, 1/20)