Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Capitol Hill Begins Drawing Battle Lines For Potential Medicare Fight
Donald J. Trump once declared that campaigning for “substantial” changes to Medicare would be a political death wish. But with Election Day behind them, emboldened House Republicans say they will move forward on a years-old effort to shift Medicare away from its open-ended commitment to pay for medical services and toward a fixed government contribution for each beneficiary. (Pear, 11/24)
President-elect Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan agree that repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with some other health insurance system is a top priority. But they disagree on whether overhauling Medicare should be part of that plan. Medicare is the government-run health system for people aged 65 and older and the disabled. Trump said little about Medicare during his campaign, other than to promise that he wouldn't cut it. Ryan, on the other hand, has Medicare in his sights. (Kodjak, 11/26)
Meanwhile, Medicare patients are hit hard by steep out-of-pocket costs —
Cancer patients with only Medicare coverage face steep out-of-pocket costs, spending on average almost a quarter of their household incomes on treatment, according to a study published Wednesday. The study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that Medicare beneficiaries without additional health coverage paid an average of $8,115 a year, or 23.7 percent of their incomes, on out-of-pocket costs after a cancer diagnosis. Some paid up to 63 percent of their incomes. Hospitalizations were the major factor for their high expenses, the researchers said. (McGinley, 11/23)
To avoid liver damage, Roberta Solar, a 71-year-old cancer patient, has to take a medicine called ursodiol, perhaps for the rest of her life. Next year her annual out-of-pocket costs for the drug will jump from $93 to $1,878 – a rise of almost 2,000%, according to information that she and her husband recently received from the insurer that covers their medicines under Medicare. The drug is just one of dozens of medications whose skyrocketing prices are increasingly hitting older Americans on fixed incomes. And that has renewed calls that the law be changed to allow Medicare, the government system that covers older Americans, to use its size and power to negotiate better drug prices. (Petersen, 11/23)
