State Highlights: Ohio Gov.’s Budget Plan Includes Medicaid Premiums; Calif. Insurance Rate Regulation Opponents Spent Big

Los Angeles Times: Opponents Of Insurance Rate Initiative Spent Big Before Election
Opponents of Proposition 45, a health insurance rate regulation initiative that was overwhelmingly defeated by California voters, spent big in the run-up to the November election. Final campaign finance reports filed Monday with the secretary of state showed that opponents spent $55.7 million to defeat the measure, up from $42.1 million in the campaign's Oct. 23 report. (Lifsher, 2/2)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Kasich Wants Sales Tax Hike, Medicaid Premiums
Ohioans would see their sales taxes increase and their income taxes fall, while some adults on Medicaid would have to start paying premiums for their health care, under a plan outlined by Gov. John Kasich Monday. ... Meanwhile, adults are likely to have to pay premiums on Medicaid of around $15 to $20 a month if their income reaches or surpasses the federal poverty level – $11,670 for a single adult. Ohio's Medicaid system already requires participants to pay copays. The administration hopes charging premiums to roughly 100,000 of Medicaid's better-off adults will help prepare them for life after Medicaid as their incomes improve. (Thompson, 2/2)

Columbus Dispatch: Kasich’s Budget Plan Aims At Medicaid Fraud
Gov. John Kasich’s budget envisions a four-year phase-out of up to 13,000 independent providers who bill Medicaid for in-home care, a move that would significantly alter much of the state’s fastest-growing industry. (Sutherly and Price, 2/3)

The Associated Press: Ohio Budget Director: Governor's Spending Plan Provides Funds To Continue Medicaid Expansion
Gov. John Kasich's state budget plan would continue to fund an expansion of Medicaid as his administration seeks to charge a monthly premium to certain residents on the health care program, state officials said Monday. The administration would need federal approval to charge the monthly fee to low-income individuals on the federal-state Medicaid program. (2/2)

NJ Spotlight: Top NJ Hospitals Getting Medicare Bonuses For Quality, Efficiency
The federal government is increasing the amount of the Medicare payments it makes to hospitals according to their performance on variety of measures. The federal Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program is one of three initiatives specified by the 2010 Affordable Care Act used to adjust hospitals’ Medicare reimbursements. (Kitchenman, 2/2)

The Washington Post: Va. Lawmakers Must Weigh Budget Demands With New Needs For Mental Health Services
Finances were one of the barriers to Alison Hymes’ release from Western State Hospital — not hers, but the state’s. Her placement at an assisted living facility in Charlottesville depended on whether her social workers could secure extra funds from the Discharge Assistance Program. DAP is designed to support individuals leaving state hospitals resume their lives in the community. Her hospital records which she shared with Post show that there was no more DAP funding available at the local level and her social workers had to appeal to the state for extra money, which eventually came through. (Shin, 2/3)

The Associated Press: Sheriff Wants To Charge Inmates For Non-emergency Treatment
Jackson County supervisors have approved a resolution authorizing Sheriff Mike Ezell to establish a program to charge inmates for access to a registered nurse for non-emergency medical attention. Ezell wants to charge the inmates seeking non-emergency medical attention a $10 fee per visit. [Mississippi] state law allows Ezell to charge inmates, and he is working on setting up that program. (2/3)

The Associated Press: Hearing On Md. Domestic Violence Medical Record Confidentiality Law Set
Maryland officials are holding a briefing on a new law that ensures privacy of confidential medical information for survivors of domestic violence. It applies to victims who seek reproductive health care, mental health care, medical treatment or counseling. (2/3)

The Des Moines Register: Sex Offenders At Mental Health Hospital Taken Off Registry
Four elderly sex offenders who live at the state mental health institute here have been taken off Iowa's public sex-offender registry, raising fears that state officials will quietly transfer the offenders to private nursing homes should the facility be closed. Opponents of the planned hospital closure have been buzzing about the four offenders' rumored removal from the online registry. State officials confirmed the deletions Monday, but said the action was unrelated to the possible closure of the mental hospital. (Leys, 2/2)

North Carolina Health News: NC Pregnancy, Abortion Rates Dropping
Fewer women in North Carolina got pregnant and gave birth in 2013 than in the previous two years, according to data from the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, and paralleling that drop in pregnancies was a falling rate of abortions. North Carolina’s pregnancy statistics mirror a national trend in which fewer women have gotten pregnant and had abortions. (Hoban, 2/3)

Reuters: Hospital Group Pays Up For Fraudulently Getting More Medicaid Funding For Rural Hospitals
A unit of Community Health Systems Inc, one of the largest U.S. hospital groups, and three of its hospitals have agreed to pay $75 million to settle claims that they made illegal donations to county governments in New Mexico to secure federal funding. The lawsuit, filed by a whistleblower employee in 2005 and joined by the U.S. government in 2009, claims that the three hospitals made donations to three New Mexico counties in order to get federal matching funds from a program that provided extra Medicaid funding to rural hospitals. (Pierson, 2/2)