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President Obama's Fiscal 2012 budget request would stop a scheduled Medicare physician payment cut for two years. Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to consider legislation that would repeal a paperwork provision in the health law that has drawn heavy opposition from small business.
Many people do not take drugs as directed-skipping doses, taking the wrong number of pills or taking them at the wrong time of day. Poor adherence results in millions of dollars of medical expenses each year.
The president chose to submit a profoundly unserious budget. There's no entitlement reform to close the long-term fiscal gap. There's no tax reform. There are some minor cuts to marginal programs for show. But, overall, it's very much a business-as-usual budget, with a few new and expensive long-term commitments thrown in for good measure. It's like the president and his team woke up after the mid-term election with a bad case of political amnesia.
In his 2012 budget, the president proposed a two-year, $54 billion solution to stop the scheduled cuts to doctors who treat Medicare patients. The plan draws on savings from a variety of sources, including states, drug makers
Some patient advocates and nursing homes object, but health plans say they can reduce states' costs.
Text of President Obama's proposed budget for the Department of Health and Human Services.
One of the lesser-known provisions of the new health law calls for federal loans to help fund health cooperatives. Scott Armstrong, the CEO of Group Health, says that co-ops can improve patient care and contain costs.
One of the lesser-known parts of the new health law is a provision that provides federal loans to help fund health cooperatives. Advocates say these Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, essentially insurers run by their members, encourage competition especially in the individual and small business health insurance market. Currently there are very few co-ops, but one that is considered a model of success is Group Health. It's CEO, Scott Armstrong sat down with KHN's Bara Vaida.
The nation's leaders must slog through the complexities and ideologies of the current political landscape in order to craft solutions that will shore up the American safety net and protect its weakest citizens.
Funding entitlements and a push to tame the budget deficit are fighting for the hearts and minds of lawmakers as the Obama administration readies its 2012 budget.
For most of the past decade, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have competed over who could pour more money into the National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world. But the party is over.
In regard to the health law's CLASS program, too little political space exists to advance midcourse corrections or enact programmatic improvements -- that's a price Democrats paid by achieving their dream of near-universal coverage on a party-line vote; and by Republicans, because of their implacable opposition to just about everything Democrats proposed.
Beginning this year, seniors who hit the coverage gap will get substantial discounts on both brand-name and generic drugs.
Starting this year, affluent Medicare beneficiaries will begin paying more than the standard premium for their Part D coverage.
An Obama administration memo details flexibility to determine which insurers can participate in health insurance exchanges, tailor Medicaid programs and even offer health savings accounts.
On Monday, 21 Republican governors sent a sharply worded letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, asking for six specific changes that would give states more control over the health law's insurance exchanges.
While some lawmakers and wonks are busy cooking up alternatives to the controversial federal mandate requiring people to have health insurance starting in 2014, one early backer of the approach insists it remains the best way to get more people covered at the lowest cost.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans are at risk of losing access to health services as states prepare to make yet another round of budget cuts.
In a letter to Justice Thomas, 74 House Democratic members write that "the only correct path" is for the judge to recuse himself from deliberations on cases involving the new health care law.
On Wednesday, 28 GOP governors sent a letter to President Obama asking him to foster faster review of the health care overhaul lawsuits so the Supreme Court can rule on their constitutionality "as soon as possible."
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