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Friday was the last day for people with something to say about the new federal health law to file briefs in the huge multistate lawsuit in Florida challenging its constitutionality and supporters as well as opponents chimed in.
Dr. Donald Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is well-liked and known as a passionate advocate for improving the health care system. Some Republicans accuse him of favoring health care rationing – a charge Democrats dismiss as nonsense.
Tomorrow, Dr. Donald Berwick, the adminstrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is scheduled to testify before the Senate Committee on Finance. Here is an advance copy of his prepared statement.
Families buying insurance on their own often find that the plans do not cover any of the usual expenses associated with having a baby.
More than 280 inmates in Texas county jails died from illnesses while in custody over a four-and-a-half period. There are no state standards for health care in county jails, but criminal justice advocates and correctional facility experts say the large number of illness-related deaths prove they’re needed.
We need more proposals like those being made by the President’s deficit reduction commission, and the Medicare reform proposal authored by Republican House members Ryan, Cantor, and McCarthy. Irrespective of whether they are the best proposals, their authors started from a place where they told the truth.
As Congress returns for its lame-duck session, lawmakers will debate legislation to stop an impending cut in Medicare physician payments.
As budget-weary state officials contemplate dropping out of the Medicaid program, a potentially game-changing question has arisen in Washington: Would poor people who lose coverage get subsidies to buy private coverage?
As Congress returns for its lame-duck session, lawmakers will debate legislation to stop an impending cut in Medicare physician payments.
Despite the outcomes of the mid-term elections, the health overhaul is the law, and it’s up to HHS to make the “vital protections” it put into a place a reality.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a likely GOP contender for the White House in 2012, publicly opposed the law again this week, this time with a preliminary filing supporting a challenge to the overhaul in a Florida court.
Faced with widening deficits, some conservative legislators in Texas and other states explore the “nuclear option” – quitting the state-federal health program for the poor.
But states’ increasing use of the private plans is raising questions about whether low-income residents are getting adequate care.
In the aftermath of Republicans’ election victories, defenders of the health care law are huddling to thwart GOP efforts to eviscerate the sweeping measure. Groups that back the law aren’t likely to coalesce around a single message to increase public support.
An untold number of dialysis patients are injured or die as a result of needle dislodgements, but Medicare rules don’t require clinics to report such adverse incidents to outside authorities.
Readers of The Washington Post posed questions about potential taxes on insurance, how to pick a plan and the increase in costs and KHN’s Michelle Andrews provided answers.
A new survey of more than 2,800 employers found no big reason for workers to worry.
Health care ranked fourth among factors that influenced how people voted last week, according to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Beginning in 2011, the new health law bars payments for over items such as aspirin, vitamins and cough medicine from the popular accounts set up with pretax dollars. Consumers can still get the coverage with a prescription.
In states like Illinois, parents can provide at-home care for children with severe illnesses and Medicaid foots the bill. But the funding disappears the minute they turn 21, forcing families to make a painful choice: Find the money to pay for sometimes exorbitant health care costs or send their children to a nursing home.
