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The Department of Health and Human Services is facing July 1 deadlines for creation of high-risk pools to help individuals who have been without health insurance for six months or longer and a new web portal to provide consumers with information about health insurance plans.
After a five-day legislative saga, Senate Democrats were unable to pass a tax extender bill that included provisions to prevent a 21 percent reduction in physicians' Medicare payments and to extend enhanced federal Medicaid funding. But after a compromise with the GOP, the Senate passed just a Medicare pay fix.
A bill before Congress that would extend richer federal Medicaid assistance to states has now become an issue in the Kansas governor's race.
The overall health care plan remains unpopular, and Republicans are campaigning on a promise to repeal the law and replace it with something less costly. But when it comes to repeal - well, Democrats think that could help them, too.
President Obama should greet a letter from Congressional Republicans about insufficient funding for the new high-risk pools as an opening bid in constructing a bipartisan bill to fix any deficiencies.
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised greater focus on HIV/AIDS but the effort was postponed as the administration wrestled with other issues.
This week's health policy news was marked by new administration rules regarding the appeals process for denied health insurance claims and continuing state-level efforts to implement high risk pools.
The Senate has passed a six-month payment increase for Medicare physicians but it is unclear if the House will pass that measure.
Two of the new health law's early deliverables - high-risk insurance pools and a federal website for consumers - took center stage as July 1 marked a busy day in the administration's implementation schedule.
Despite the relentless sales pitch, there was always a lot of skepticism among voters that such a government-heavy plan would leave them alone and be cost-free. Now, of course, their skepticism is being validated.
The Obama administration's biggest domestic policy accomplishment -- the new health care law -- is under steady legal attack. On Thursday, lawyers argued the first case to hit the courts, filed by the attorney general of Virginia. More than a dozen other state challenges are in the pipeline.
Caught up in the congressional politics swirling around a pending tax bill are proposals that affect health care for newly laid-off workers as well as Medicare and Medicaid patients.
Doctors across the country find themselves
Bowing to pressure from Democratic fiscal conservatives, House Democratic leaders scaled back health-related provisions in tax extenders legislation the House passed before beginning its Memorial Day recess.
The proposal to extend COBRA subsidies to those laid off through the end of the year is languishing in Congress. So the unemployed may soon pay more to remain on COBRA, look for insurance on the individual market, go on Medicaid or lose coverage altogether. And that could further tax a health system already struggling to keep up with the number of uninsured.
The White House today released a "Fact Sheet: The Affordable Care Act's New Patient's Bill of Rights," the Obama administration's summary of new regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Administration officials tout the Medicare drug rebate as an early and tangible benefit of health reform while Senate Democrats continue trying to advance a legislative package that includes the Medicare physician payment fix and, potentially, an extension of enhanced Medicaid funding for states.
Over the last five years, Texas physicians wrote Medicaid patients nearly 3.4 million prescriptions for antipsychotics.
Challenges from conservative Democrats forced party leaders this week to cut some major spending programs, such as extending COBRA benefits for workers being laid off and providing extra money to state Medicaid programs.
Consumer-directed health plans have been useful in controlling the rise of health costs over the last several years, but the survival of these plans is threatened by the new health overhaul law.
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