GDP's ObamaCare Downgrade: A health spending plunge coincides with the new law's launch.
The Wall Street Journal
June 25, 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/gdps-obamacare-downgrade-1403738610
Financial markets shrugged off Wednesday's punch-in-the-stomach report that first quarter GDP shrank by 2.9% on an annual basis, far more than earlier estimates and the worst quarterly decline in five years. Optimists blame the weather and point to faster growth in the current quarter, which is reasonable but still shouldn't overlook ObamaCare's role in nearly sending the economy back into recession. January saw the formal launch of the Affordable Care Act, and its attempt to transform U.S. health insurance and medical practice. So it's notable that a major cause of the sharp downward revision in first-quarter GDP was a decline in consumer spending on health care. Lower exports and investment also played a role, but the overall decline in health spending from the previous quarter was a startling 6.4%.
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Virginia lawmakers finalize budget, averting a shutdown as GOP thwarts McAuliffe veto
The Washington Post
June 23, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/in-va-republican-lawmakers-will-try-to-thwart-mcauliffes-line-item-vetoes/2014/06/23/60da8bf2-f8d6-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html
The Virginia General Assembly completed work late Monday on a two-year, $96 billion state budget, averting a government shutdown and at least temporarily thwarting Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s key priority of expanding health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
The setback for McAuliffe (D) — and the long-delayed finalization of the budget — came months into a bitter political standoff between the governor and legislative Republicans over whether to expand government-funded health coverage to 400,000 low-income Virginians under the controversial federal law. The issue has come to define McAuliffe’s young term as governor.
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Deal reached on botched Mass. health site
The Boston Globe
June 20, 2014
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/06/20/state-reaches-settlement-with-cgi-builder-botched-health-insurance-website/IIW25yQ7QqRek8d9nV3Z4J/story.html
Massachusetts agreed Friday to pay $35 million to the Canadian technology developer that created the botched health insurance website, which the state abandoned last month.
Counting $17 million already paid last year to the company, CGI, the state’s bill will total $52 million for a site that malfunctioned from the start when it launched last October.
State officials said the deal will ensure an orderly end to CGI’s work for the state, avoid litigation, and pay for the company’s assistance in recent months and its contributions to a replacement website.
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HHS’s Burwell makes management changes
The Washington Post
June 20, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hhss-burwell-makes-management-changes/2014/06/20/d1704302-f895-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced a series of management changes Friday that are intended to put a single administrator in charge of the federal health insurance marketplace — something both critics and allies of the Obama administration have urged since the troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov last year.
Burwell announced that she plans to hire a chief executive officer to oversee the insurance exchange — an idea that some in the White House had advocated without success when the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. In addition, Burwell has appointed a second-in-command within HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — Andy Slavitt, group executive vice president of Optum, the main contractor that has been coordinating the work of fixing and creating parts of HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance exchange’s Web site.
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Manchin bill would reform hospital readmissions program –
Charleston Daily Mail
June 20, 2014
http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20140620/DM0104/140629951
A bill introduced Thursday by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., aims to help hospitals in low-income areas by ensuring they’re evaluated and reimbursed fairly. The Hospital Readmissions Program Accuracy and Accountability Act, with cosponsors Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to account for patient socio-economic status when calculating risk-adjustment readmissions penalties. Studies have shown hospitals serving large numbers of low-income patients consistently have higher readmissions rates than wealthier health care facilities. That’s because low-income patients often lack the support to keep them out of the hospital or become healthier thanks in part to higher levels of homelessness, high illiteracy rates, poor access to auxiliary health care services and pharmacies and other issues. The legislation would help change that by improving quality of care, increase accountability for inpatient hospitals and reduce Medicare readmissions.
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Republicans spar with HHS over insurer ‘bailout’
The Hill
June 19, 2014
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/209985-republicans-spar-with-hhs-over-insurer-bailout
Congressional Republicans are clashing with the Obama administration over whether it has the authority to distribute money to health insurance companies in what they are calling a “taxpayer bailout” under ObamaCare. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell sent a letter this week to Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) asserting that she has the legal authority to redistribute the money in the “risk corridors” program, which was created by the healthcare law.
The “risk corridors” program, which was modeled after a provision in the Medicare prescription drug benefit passed in 2003, is meant to ease the transition for insurers into ObamaCare. It would achieve that by redistributing money from insurers with healthier, less expensive consumers to those with sicker, more costly enrollees.
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Most Buying On Insurance Exchanges Were Uninsured
Kaiser Health News
June 19, 2014
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2014/june/19/survey-of-newly-insured-consumers-obamacare.aspx
Nearly six in 10 Americans who bought insurance for this year through the health law’s online marketplaces were previously uninsured—most for at least two years, according to a new survey that looks at the experiences of those most affected by the law. That finding is higher than some earlier estimates, and counters arguments made by critics of the law that most of those who purchased the new policies were previously insured.
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Warnings on Obamacare Website Overlooked, Republican Report Says
Bloomberg
June 19, 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-19/warnings-on-obamacare-website-overlooked-republican-report-says.html
A contractor the Obama administration hired to monitor progress on its health insurance website, healthcare.gov, repeatedly warned the project was falling behind before the site failed in October, Senate Republicans said in a report.
The contractor, TurningPoint Global Solutions, “raised a litany of red flags” about the project in audits for the government beginning about a year before the website opened Oct. 1, according to the report by two Republican senators, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Charles Grassley of Iowa. A month before the site went live, the contractor said that of 355,000 lines of code, 21,000 had defects.
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GAO calls for more oversight of managed care
The Hill
June 18, 2014
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/209845-gao-calls-for-more-oversight-of-managed-care#ixzz35fmhOZqJ
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday that state and federal Medicaid auditors need to increase their oversight of managed care organizations.
In a new report, the GAO says Medicaid auditors are focusing their efforts on fraud and waste from fee-for-service payments while neglecting managed care organizations.
The agency recommends the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issue guidance to require states to audit payments to and by managed care organizations.
It also recommends CMS give additional support for oversight of such organizations by helping audit existing contractors. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee who requested the report, said it was “particularly troubling” and called on CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to implement GAO’s recommendations.
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