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It is not clear why it's happening, but some hospice officials blame both a bad economy and Medicare rules that unintentionally discourage doctors from referring all but those who are about to die.
The federal stimulus package that sent nearly $2 billion to community health centers appears to have paid off in economic returns.
President Obama has scheduled a bipartisan summit for Feb. 25 to discuss ways to pass health care overhaul legislation this year. On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders in both chambers are trying to resolve differences between House and Senate-passed health care bills and make progress on the issue once lawmakers return from the President's Day recess.
President Obama has scheduled a bipartisan summit for Feb. 25 to discuss ways to pass health care overhaul legislation this year. On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders in both chambers are trying to resolve differences between House and Senate-passed health care bills and make progress on the issue once lawmakers return from the President's Day recess.
Twenty-seven years ago, President Ronald Reagan and a Congress split between Republican and Democratic control agreed to a radical new payment scheme for Medicare. The resulting legislation trimmed billions of dollars from the federal budget and caused medical inflation to plummet, yet still maintained quality of care.
As health care legislation falters, health groups worry that proposed spending cutbacks might be used to narrow the budget gap, not expand coverage.
The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, several senators who now oppose an individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it. In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea.
The U.S. leads the world in creating state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic treatments with the potential to work miracles for patients. But is the overuse of pricey technologies in preventive medicine driving up health care costs unnecessarily?
Too many Democrats seem not to grasp the choice before them - the legislation simply has too much to offer to believe for a minute that doing nothing is the better choice.
Physicians are the immediate beneficiaries of a provision in the jobs bill that would postpone a 21 percent cut in the amount Medicare pays them.
As a part of our "Are You Covered?" series, KHN and NPR also examine how the health overhaul would impact the uninsured.
Kansas is going to need more doctors to meet the growing needs of an aging population, officials here say.
Nearly three years ago, Harry Rosenberg and his wife, Barbara Filner, met with nine of their neighbors about starting an aging-in-place "village" in Bethesda, Maryland. The idea: If neighbors could help one another with basic services such as transportation and simple home maintenance and with friendly visits, people could stay in their homes longer as they aged.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that President Obama's Feb. 25 bipartisan summit is to "get Republicans to re-engage in the process. It is not acceptable that half the legislative body pushed away from the table months ago and said 'we do not want to participate.'"
For most of last year, Republicans spent their time attacking Democratic plans for reform, rather than describing their own. But now they've put a plan on the table. Showcasing that plan--and comparing it to what the Democrats have proposed--might help clarify a few things.
A new study shows that, compared to last year, an additional 2.6 million children are now enrolled in the federal-state coverage programs, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
With health care legislation stalled, the GOP is touting its plan which includes allowing Americans to buy health coverage from another state. Democrats include a version in their bills. Critics say this would erode consumer protections.
A new study by federal officials finds that state, local and federal health spending has steadily increased. And, the nation's health spending as a share of the economy jumped in 2009 by 1.1 points to 17.3 percent.
It's not that President Obama and his advisors don't recognize their budget problem. They speak frequently about the dangers of business as usual. The problem is that the president's stated solution will never work.
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