Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Budget Deal Wins Applause For Averting Standoff, Small Gains On Entitlements
The New York Times: A Budget Deal To Live By, For Now
The budget deal agreed to Monday night by Republican and Democratic leaders is modest by any fiscal measure. But it still counts as a big victory for common sense. ... it will avoid a potentially devastating default on the government’s debt by extending the debt-limit deadline from Nov. 3 until March 2017. It will also help to avert a government shutdown in December by providing federal financing through September 2017. It closes a hole in the Social Security disability fund that threatened severe benefit cuts and prevents an imminent steep increase in out-of-pocket costs for many Medicare beneficiaries. (10/27)
The Wall Street Journal: The Best Worst Budget Deal
As for the fine print, the use of budget gimmicks to “pay for” the deal is flagrant as usual. The old gang is back together: pension smoothing, spectrum auctions, more IRS audits allegedly to improve tax compliance, selling off barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when oil prices are at modern lows. But Republicans did secure modest entitlement reforms. The deal repeals an ObamaCare mandate for businesses to automatically enroll workers in health benefits, regardless of the cost. It also equalizes the Medicare payment rates for hospital and outpatient care to mitigate losses from providers that game the formula to get paid more for the same services. (10/27)
The Washington Post: The Budget Deal Is A Small Victory For Bipartisanship
To be sure, within the bill’s “pay-fors” are modest but real reforms of mandatory spending programs, the most significant of which would be a $3 billion cut to egregious crop insurance subsidies over the next decade. In addition, the bill would tighten procedures for Social Security Disability Insurance, saving about $4 billion over 10 years, while allowing the program to experiment with incentives to get recipients back to work. The bill would also do away with disparities in Medicare reimbursements for doctors depending on whether they work out of hospitals or off-site. (10/27)
USA Today: Budget Deal Beats The Alternative: Our View
Fortunately, many in the GOP are coming to this conclusion. In his last act before stepping down as speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio has negotiated a two-year budget deal with President Obama that would push back the next potential debt-ceiling conflict to March 2017. The deal, expected to be voted on Wednesday in the House, is small in scope. Unlike an unsuccessful attempt in 2011 at a “grand bargain” on taxes and spending, this deal does nothing of consequence to rein in the entitlement programs that are driving federal deficits. (10/27)
USA Today: Congress Throws Gas On Debt Fire: Opposing View
Minutes before midnight on Monday, Congress unveiled a bipartisan budget deal that will increase our nation’s debt limit by $1.5 trillion. As part of the deal, lawmakers will bust the budget caps by $80 billion, bail out a bloated disability insurance program and raise revenue through a variety of gimmicks. In other words, Washington is going to spend more of your money to avoid doing its job. (Michael A. Needham, 10/27)
Los Angeles Times: Still The Third Rail? Social Security, Medicare Mostly Unharmed In Budget Deal
Leaks from the party caucuses and negotiations suggested that the agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling and remove some sequester caps would be paid for by cuts to Social Security disability benefits and Medicare. For the most part, that didn't happen. ... the disability program, which risked running out of reserves sometime next year, was shored up in exactly the way favored by Social Security advocates--by reallocating some of the Social Security payroll tax from the old-age program to disability insurance. ... The deal also will head off a Medicare premium increase of 52% that loomed for about a third of all Medicare beneficiaries--8 million seniors--next year. The increase will be cut to about 14%, raising those person's monthly rates to $120 from $104.90. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/27)
Bloomberg: Obamacare Premiums Rise, Sort Of As Predicted
If you buy insurance on the exchanges, your premiums are probably going up. How much will depend on what state you live in. New data released by the government indicate that the lucky citizens of four states will see the price of their two cheapest options fall (by significant amounts, in Indiana and Mississippi). On the other hand, citizens of 19 states, almost 3 million people, will see increases of more than 10 percent, and four states will see increases of more than 25 percent. ... Is this a disaster? Not yet. Insurance was underpriced in the first few years, and now it’s rising toward the market level. What matters is what happens in the future. Is this a one-year blip, as insurers adjust? Or is a 7.5 percent annual hike something we can expect for years to come? (Megan McArdle, 10/27)
Modern Healthcare: Putting Ben Carson's Healthcare Proposal Under The Microscope
Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson has a healthcare reform proposal that's a reminder of why business and investment advisers long have made fun of physicians. Because they are experts in medical matters, doctors tend to think they are experts in everything. ... making Medicare and Medicaid voluntary programs would unravel the insurance risk pool in the same way that proposals to make Social Security voluntary would unravel the retirement safety net. (Harris Meyer, 10/27)
The New York Times' The Upshot: Ben Carson’s Health Care Plan: New And More Confusing
For the last few years, Ben Carson has been talking about a very disruptive but simple plan to reform the health care system in the United States: replace Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid with an easy-to-understand universal, cradle-to-grave annual cash allowance for health spending. But last weekend, in a series of interviews, Mr. Carson, who is now narrowly leading in some national polls for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, said he had discarded that idea, and was now presenting a new health plan. It’s less politically toxic, but much less coherent. It is also less likely to lead to the big changes to the health care system he seeks. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 10/27)
The Washington Post's Right Turn: Jeb Bush’s Entitlement Reforms
On Medicare, Bush takes a page from the policy guidebook Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is best-known for. Bush, like Ryan, advocates a premium support plan (i.e., a defined-contribution plan). He also supports health spending accounts (“Today, seniors may be responsible for co-pays, deductibles and premiums, which can be difficult to afford on a fixed income. Once an individual enrolls in Medicare, he or she cannot save money in a tax-free health savings account, or ‘HSA.’ I will allow seniors to keep their HSAs to help cover out-of-pocket health care spending and have more financial security.”) He also adopts stricter means testing. (Jennifer Rubin, 10/27)
The Wall Street Journal: The Good And Bad Of Those Ubiquitous Drug Ads
We’ve all seen the drug ads on TV and elsewhere. Drug X will make you feel better and help you take control of your life. But almost every drug seems to have an impossibly long list of potential side effects, including in a small number of cases the scariest ones like cancer or death. A new survey of the public out Wednesday suggests the impact of drug ads may be both good and bad. (Drew Altman, 10/28)
The New York Times: Meat As A Cause Of Cancer
The latest cancer report from the World Health Organization provides persuasive evidence that eating meat can cause cancer, but the risk is very small for most people. (10/29)
