First Edition: November 4, 2014

Kaiser Health News: Hospitals Take Cues From The Hospitality Industry
Two years ago, Inova Health System recruited a top executive who was not a physician, had never worked in hospital administration and barely knew the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. What Paul Westbrook specialized in was customer service. His background is in the hotel business – Marriott and The Ritz-Carlton, to be precise. He is one of dozens of hospital executives around the country with a new charge. Called chief patient experience officers, their focus is on the service side of hospital care: improving communication with patients and making sure staff are attentive to their needs, whether that’s more face time with nurses or quieter hallways so they can sleep. (Rabin, 11/4)

USA Today: Feds To Require Big Companies To Cover Hospitalization
The Obama administration plans to close a loophole in the Affordable Care Act that allows large companies to refuse to cover in-patient hospital stays in any of their health insurance plans, according to an official involved in the internal discussions. The official requested anonymity until the announcement is made because "the guidance that will be issued is not finalized." (O'Donnell, 11/3)

The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Obamacare Premium Changes Coming Soon—But Not by Election Day
Just after the election, insurers will send letters to millions of consumers spelling out changes in premiums for coverage under the health care law. Why not before? Under the health law, the federal government is responsible for approving premiums for health plans in 36 states where it is running some or all of the online insurance exchanges through the HealthCare.gov website. The Department of Health and Human Services told insurers in early September they should notify consumers who hold policies with them of their new premiums for 2015 only after HHS approved the rates. HHS can’t reject the new rates, only criticize them. (Radnofsky, 11/3)

The New York Times: A Builder Swears He’ll Stay At 49 Employees To Avoid The Mandate. Unless He Grows.
Todd Hawkins is a Virginia home builder who insists that the big plans he has for his business are not so big that they will put him in the path of the Affordable Care Act. That, anyway, is what he told You’re the Boss readers when he commented on a recent post about determining whether a company is subject to the law’s employer mandate. “I can promise we won’t go over 49 employees, so A.C.A. will affect employment, at least by one company,” he wrote. “Mine.” But Mr. Hawkins told a different story when I contacted him a few days later to talk about his comment. “Next year,” he said, if he and his partner’s new idea works out, “that’s when we’ll run into the A.C.A.” He has 21 employees now. (Mandelbaum, 11/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Big Issues For New Senate: Border, Health-Care Repeal, Energy
Republican candidates and a few Democrats toughened their stands on illegal immigration. The GOP hardened its vows to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Minimum-wage increases championed by Democrats drew some GOP support. In a midterm campaign generally short on detailed policy debates, a small set of issues broke through. The question now is whether the campaign rhetoric will make it harder or easier for the two parties to find common ground after Tuesday’s voting. (Meckler, 11/3)

The Washington Post's Wonkblog: These Governors’ Races Could Decide Whether Millions More Will Get Health Insurance
You won't find Obamacare listed on any state ballots this year, but the future of its coverage expansion will hinge on the outcome of gubernatorial races across the country. Voters in 15 of the 23 states that haven't expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act will go to the polls on Tuesday, and the outcome of those elections will play a major role in determining the reach of President Obama's health-care law. (Millman, 11/3)

Los Angeles Times: Midterm Election Rides Wave Of Anger At Incumbents
Adding to the onslaught has been a seemingly endless barrage of bad news — about Ebola, Russian hegemony, hostages beheaded in the Middle East — and a series of Washington missteps, including the botched rollout of the healthcare program and scandals at the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The result is a surly electorate, and it goes beyond Colorado. Those not skipping the election in disgust are ready to lash out at lawmakers of both parties. (Barabak, 11/3)

USA Today/KUSA-TV Denver: Ad Watch: DSCC Ad Hits Gardner On Medicare, Education
Late in the ad war, Democrats are going to an old standby attack: scaring seniors about Medicare. ... The attacks in the DSCC ad are based on Gardner's support of budget plans from Rep. Paul Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee. Each version of the Ryan plan focused on curbing federal spending, though a lot of the specifics would have been left up to Congress to decide, making some of the specifics in this ad questionable. (Rittman, 11/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Aetna To Buy Insurance Exchange Technology Company
Aetna Inc. said it has reached a deal to buy a privately held provider of technology that helps people shop on health-insurance exchanges, which have grown in prominence under the federal Affordable Care Act. Aetna said the deal for the company, bswift, carries a price tag of about $400 million, and is expected to close before the end of this year. (Calia, 11/3)

The Associated Press: Aetna Spends $400M On Exchange Technology Provider
Health insurer Aetna will spend $400 million on a technology company that could strengthen its push into a relatively small but growing area of employer-sponsored coverage: private exchanges that let workers choose their own plans. Aetna said Monday it is acquiring privately held Bswift, a Chicago-based company that provides technology for benefits administration and insurance purchases on private exchanges. More employers have been considering private insurance exchanges in recent years as a way to improve control over health care costs that consistently rise faster than inflation and consumer bigger portions of their budgets. Under this approach, businesses generally give their workers a set amount of money to purchase health insurance and then send them to a private exchange, where they pick from a number of plans. (11/3)

The Wall Street Journal: LabCorp To Buy Covance For About $6.1 Billion
Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, one of the largest U.S. medical testing companies, is entering the drug-development business by agreeing to buy Covance Inc. in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $6.1 billion, the companies said on Monday. (Walker, 11/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Tenet Healthcare Revenue Soars
Tenet Healthcare Corp. said its third-quarter revenue soared and admissions continued to improve with a boost from the U.S. health-care policy overhaul. For the year, the hospital operator raised the lower end of its projection for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by $50 million and now expects to a range of $1.90 billion to $1.95 billion. (Stynes, 11/3)

The Associated Press: Stock Market’s Recovery Is Led By Drugmakers
For stocks, it’s just what the doctor ordered. Health care companies are leading the market’s rebound from a sharp sell-off two weeks ago, helping push the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index back to record levels. (11/3)

The Washington Post: Everything You Need To Know About Tuesday’s 146 State Ballot Measures
North Dakota and Colorado will weigh “personhood” amendments to their state constitutions. Each would enshrine and expand rights to the unborn, with opponents suggesting the measures would have unintended consequences, such as putting an end to in vitro fertilization, banning some forms of birth control and restricting access to abortion providers. Tennessee’s Amendment 1 would lay the foundation for future abortion restrictions by amending the state constitution to explicitly make clear that nothing in it “secures or protects right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.” ... California is home to what are among the most expensive ballot fights in the nation. A pair of health care-related measures — propositions 45 and 46 — have generated at least $130 million in combined contributions, largely from insurers, doctors and lawyers. (Chokshi, 11/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Wisconsin Governor’s Race In Dead Heat As Voters Head To Polls
Mr. Walker campaigned on the sometimes controversial polices enacted during his four years in office, which included income and property tax cuts, overhauling health care for the poor and eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for government employees. He promised to push similar policies in a second term, including placing new limits on public assistance. ... Ms. Burke, 55, has staked out positions as a business-friendly Democrat whose professional career began while working for Wisconsin-based bicycle maker Trek Bicycle Corp., which her father started. She opposes school vouchers and restrictions on same-sex marriage, while criticizing Mr. Walker for refusing to accept federal money from the Affordable Care Act aimed at expanding health care to more low-income residents. (Kesling and Peters, 11/4)