Hot-Button Medicaid Bill
In addition to shifting nearly all Medicaid patients to HMOs and other managed care, the Senate’s proposal would cap spending, require plans to bid for business and impose $100 fees on patients who abuse the emergency room.
All Coverage
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States Seeking To Cut Medicaid Rolls Get Some Help
Federal officials are walking a fine line trying to satisfy the demands of budget-strapped governors who want to cut their Medicaid programs.
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Hardliners On Health Law: End It, Don’t Mend It
The conservative group FreedomWorks recommends a system of vouchers to replace Medicare, Medicaid and provisions of the new health law.
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Health On The Hill Transcript: President Obama’s Health Budget Scrutinized
Jackie Judd of the Kaiser Family Foundation is joined by Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News and David Nather of Politico to talk about the president’s 2012 proposed budget and a House bill that would repeal a provision of the health care overhaul that small businesses find particularly onerous.
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Video: Obama Signals Willingness To Work With GOP On Health Care Entitlement Spending
President Obama said Tuesday that he is willing to work with Republicans to help address the “huge problems” of high Medicare and Medicaid spending.
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Opinion Column
Answering The Obama Budget Critics…
For all of those people who are furious about President Obama’s budget, here’s an important question: Do you have a more fiscally responsible and politically viable alternative?
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Opinion Column
A Slippery Slope To Defunding The Health Law
As the House considers its repeal of the health law’s unpopular 1099 reporting provision, the measure’s premium tax credits are being eyed as a possible pay-for.
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Health on the Hill: President Obama’s Health Budget Scrutinized
President Obama’s Fiscal 2012 budget request would stop a scheduled Medicare physician payment cut for two years. Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to consider legislation that would repeal a paperwork provision in the health law that has drawn heavy opposition from small business.
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Experts Seek To Simplify Medication Labels That Often Confuse Patients
Many people do not take drugs as directed-skipping doses, taking the wrong number of pills or taking them at the wrong time of day. Poor adherence results in millions of dollars of medical expenses each year.
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Opinion Column
An Irresponsible Roll Of The Dice
The president chose to submit a profoundly unserious budget. There’s no entitlement reform to close the long-term fiscal gap. There’s no tax reform. There are some minor cuts to marginal programs for show. But, overall, it’s very much a business-as-usual budget, with a few new and expensive long-term commitments thrown in for good measure. It’s like the president and his team woke up after the mid-term election with a bad case of political amnesia.
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Obama’s Medicare ‘Doc Fix’ Under Fire
In his 2012 budget, the president proposed a two-year, $54 billion solution to stop the scheduled cuts to doctors who treat Medicare patients. The plan draws on savings from a variety of sources, including states, drug makers
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More Elderly and Disabled Medicaid Patients Headed for Managed Long-Term Care
Some patient advocates and nursing homes object, but health plans say they can reduce states’ costs.
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Text: President Obama’s Proposed 2012 HHS Budget
Text of President Obama’s proposed budget for the Department of Health and Human Services.
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Health Co-ops Touted As Model For Lower Costs, Better Care
One of the lesser-known parts of the new health law is a provision that provides federal loans to help fund health cooperatives. Advocates say these Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, essentially insurers run by their members, encourage competition especially in the individual and small business health insurance market. Currently there are very few co-ops, but one that is considered a model of success is Group Health. It’s CEO, Scott Armstrong sat down with KHN’s Bara Vaida.
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How Group Health Is Holding Costs Down: A KHN Interview With CEO Scott Armstrong
One of the lesser-known provisions of the new health law calls for federal loans to help fund health cooperatives. Scott Armstrong, the CEO of Group Health, says that co-ops can improve patient care and contain costs.
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Opinion Column
The Politics Of Scarcity
The nation’s leaders must slog through the complexities and ideologies of the current political landscape in order to craft solutions that will shore up the American safety net and protect its weakest citizens.
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Heavyweight Budget Fight: Entitlements Vs. The Deficit
Funding entitlements and a push to tame the budget deficit are fighting for the hearts and minds of lawmakers as the Obama administration readies its 2012 budget.
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Chopping Block Politics Threatens Biomedical Jobs
For most of the past decade, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have competed over who could pour more money into the National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world. But the party is over.
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Opinion Column
Political Gridlock And The Challenge Of Implementing Health Reform
In regard to the health law’s CLASS program, too little political space exists to advance midcourse corrections or enact programmatic improvements — that’s a price Democrats paid by achieving their dream of near-universal coverage on a party-line vote; and by Republicans, because of their implacable opposition to just about everything Democrats proposed.
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FAQ: The Shrinking Medicare Doughnut Hole
Beginning this year, seniors who hit the coverage gap will get substantial discounts on both brand-name and generic drugs.
