Medicine & Health articles from February 2002

Medicine & Health archives from February 2002

Bush advances $89 billion tax credit plan for uninsured. (Uninsured).
February 4, 2002... President George W. Bush's fiscal year 2003 budget will include $89 billion over ten years in tax credits to help those without access to employer-sponsored coverage purchase insurance, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said...

House Dems will hammer on Rx coverage, cost containment. (In Congress).
February 4, 2002... "When large numbers of people can't afford their prescriptions, that's a public health crisis," House Commerce Health Subcommittee ranking Democrat Sherrod Brown (OH) said at a Jan. 30 press briefing. Helpless to call hearings and thereby shape...

Bush wants low-income drug aid, M+C pay hike, new Medigap plans. (Medicare).
February 4, 2002... In a White House proposal estimated to cost $190 billion over ten years, the federal government would foot much of the bill for providing prescription drug coverage to low-income seniors and disabled people. The plan would devote $77 billion to...

Report touts generic savings. (Generic Drugs).
February 4, 2002... Medicare's 40 million beneficiaries could save about 16 percent on prescription drug expenditures if generic drug incentives already in use in the private sector were more broadly applied, says a report by Stanley Wallack, the director of the...

Reconsider DSH hike, OIG says. (Medicaid DSH Payments).
February 4, 2002... The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should seek legislation repealing or at least delaying the scheduled increase in the limit for Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments to 175 percent of uncompensated care costs, the HHS...

RX drugs' costs are worth it, say speakers. (Prescription Drugs).
February 4, 2002... Reports that focus only on the "exploding" costs of prescription drugs leave out the other side of the equation: the benefits that accrue from pharmaceuticals, both inside and outside the health care system, that outweigh the costs of the...

Study: JCAHO standards don't measure quality. (Hospitals).
February 4, 2002... There is no relationship between the scores a hospital receives from the dominant hospital accrediting organization and how well the institution cares for patients, according to a new study by John Griffith and Jeffrey Alexander of the...

Survey: high nurse turnover equals high cost. (Nursing Workforce).
February 4, 2002... The national average turnover among hospital registered nurses in 2000 was 21.3 percent, according to a survey conducted by Scottsdale AZ-based HSM Group, Ltd., for the American Organization of Nurse Executives. Specialty hospitals had the...

Senate approves FMAP boost.
February 4, 2002... Senate Approves FMAP Boost. During debate on a still-unapproved economic stimulus package, the Senate Jan. 29 approved an amendment increasing federal Medicaid assistance percentages for all states over the next two fiscal years, a boon...

Merck and Medco to split.
February 4, 2002... Merck And Medco To Split. With new generic competition biting into its once healthy profit margin and the new drug pipeline offering little short-term relief, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. said Jan. 29 that it will split off its pharmacy...

HHS wants SCHIP coverage to begin at conception.
February 4, 2002... HHS Wants SCHIP Coverage To Begin At Conception. In what the administration is calling an effort to provide better prenatal care to poor women, and pro-choice groups are calling a thinly-veiled attempt to score points in the abortion debate,...

OIG says CMS doing good job of monitoring home health providers.
February 4, 2002... OIG Says CMS Doing Good Job Of Monitoring Home Health Providers. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is doing a good job ensuring that ineligible individuals and entities are not enrolled as Medicare home health providers, the HHS...

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
February 4, 2002... Linda Fishman is the new health policy director for Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. Fishman moves over from a brief stint as a senior policy advisor to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (People).
February 4, 2002... Michael Rapp, MD, is the new chair of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Practicing Physicians Advisory Council. Rapp, who is also an attorney, has been emergency department chair of the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington and...

Biotechnology Industry Organization.
February 4, 2002... Rejoining the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) as chief of staff is Carey Lackman. Lackman worked on Specter's senatorial and presidential election campaign staffs and as a legislative assistant in his Capitol Hill office as well as in the...

Proposal is down payment on long-term Bush medicare vision. (Medicine & Health Perspectives).
February 4, 2002... Two main principles governed the Bush administration's development of Medicare proposals (see story, p.3), administration officials said at a Jan. 29 background briefing. To merit inclusion, provisions had to constitute building blocks for an...

Money sparse for health programs ... (Bush Budget).(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... Two key statements by two key officials sum up the gist of what the White House told the world last week about how the Bush administration views its fiscal year 2003 budget plans for health (see Perspectives, p. 7, for more budget details). ...

... And some key decisions left to congress.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... Seeing pet projects slated for a zero budget may irk some members of Congress. But for others, what may be more troubling about the White House budget plan is its silence on some tricky issues that cry out for solutions this year. At a...

Provider groups can't all get raises, says White House. (Medicare Provider Payments).(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... The Bush administration is willing to reconsider the Medicare physician update formula this year, but will only make changes if offsets can be found in other provider payment formulas so that any changes leave the system budget neutral,...

FFS rates for M+C too costly, says Scully. (Medicare+Choice).(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... The Bush administration's recommendation to give Medicare+Choice plans a 6.5 percent payment update for 2003 rather than reimbursing health plans equivalently to local Medicare fee-for-service rates was a matter of tight money, Centers for...

Conrad says Bush budget doesn't prepare for boomers. (Democratic Budget View).(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... Democrats have been criticizing President George W. Bush's fiscal year 2003 budget for making excessive cuts in health and other areas and for putting the government in a long-term fiscal hole just when we should be preparing for the huge costs...

Cloning raises issues of feminism, role of science. (Cloning).(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... While agreeing with rare unanimity that so-called reproductive cloning should be illegal, senators remain sharply divided on the question of therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer or simply nuclear transplantation....

Report suggests need for extension of per-diem payment. (Skilled Nursing Facilities).(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... Publicly held skilled nursing facilities are slowly returning to profitability after a meltdown in the late 1990s as Medicare's SNF prospective payment system went into effect, says a new financial report. Nursing homes, both for-profit...

Going, going, gone, and not in the home run sense, on stimulus.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... * Going, Going, Gone, And Not In the Home Run Sense, On Stimulus. For a while now, congressional attempts to pass an economic stimulus package have been in need of a stimulus themselves; recently, the needed stimulus has appeared to be of the...

And on the subject of paddles ...(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... * And on the Subject of Paddles... By unanimous consent, the Senate Feb. 6 passed and sent to the House the Community Access to Emergency Defibrillation Act, sponsored by Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN). The bill directs the Department of Health and...

Few docs subject to incentives to limit care, says HSC.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... * Few Docs Subject To Incentives To Limit Care, Says HSC. Physician practices are more likely to provide their doctors with incentives that encourage more care, not less, according to an issue brief by the Center for Studying Health System...

One good reason for providers to sign off on a congressional AWP deal.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... * One Good Reason For Providers To Sign Off On A Congressional AWP Deal. A small group of providers, including oncologists and some kidney dialysis providers, are leery of congressional plans to overhaul the so-called average wholesale price...

Unexpected kudos for States' SCHIP administration.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... * Unexpected Kudos For States' SCHIP Administration. States are doing better than they thought at keeping eligible children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program, according to a study released Feb. 8 by the National Academy for State...

Biotechnology Industry Organization.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... Rejoining the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) as chief of staff is Carey Lackman. Lackman worked on Specter's senatorial and presidential election campaign staffs and as a legislative assistant in his Capitol Hill office as well as in the...

American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... At the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine, deputy executive vice president John Tooker, MD, will become the group's executive vice president and chief executive officer in July 2002.

Maine Medical Center in Portland.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... An internist and pulmonologist, Tooker was assistant chief of internal medicine for the Maine Medical Center in Portland. He's been ACP-ASIM's chief operating officer since 1995.

Catholic Health Association of the United States.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... Moving up at the Catholic Health Association of the United States is former government relations director Michael Rodgers, who becomes CHA's new vice president for public policy and advocacy. Earlier, Rodgers held positions with the American...

Bush budget built on money-saving assumptions. (Perspectives).(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... President George W. Bush's fiscal year 2003 spending proposal "is a budget in which the president clearly makes the health of the American people a priority," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson at a Feb. 4 briefing. But in...

Tax credits stir debate. (The Uninsured).(Brief Article)
February 18, 2002... Tax Credits Stir Debate. The Bush administration's proposed tax credit for the uninsured will lead to everyone getting insurance through the individual market. Or it will lead to a government-run, single-payer system. Depends which member of...

Scully says short-term fix might be best bet. (Medicare Physician Payment).
February 18, 2002... Scully Says Short-Term Fix Might Be Best Bet. This year's cut in Medicare physician reimbursement will be as big as it gets for the near future, and there will be more money available later for a permanent fix, so why not pass a two- or...

Uninsured get web site; can they get a constituency? (The Uninsured).
February 18, 2002... Uninsured Get Web Site; Can They Get A Constituency? Two years ago a coalition of groups with differing viewpoints produced a proposal on how to decrease the ranks of the uninsured. Now, these groups and others are launching a campaign to...

Bush plan inadequate, say Dems. (Global HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
February 18, 2002... Bush Budget Plan Inadequate, Say Dems. Democrats at a Senate hearing criticized as too small the $900 million the Bush budget proposal devotes to fighting the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) has introduced a bill to up the...

Utah plan to cut benefits, expand coverage approved. (Medicaid).
February 18, 2002... Utah Plan To Cut Benefits, Expand Coverage Approved. The Department of Health and Human Services has approved Utah's request to cut some benefits for Medicaid recipients in return for offering primary and preventive care to relatively...

Agreement on genetic info law, concerns about details. (Genetic Discrimination).
February 18, 2002... Agreement On Genetic Info Law, Concerns About Details. Nobody at a congressional hearing quarreled with the basic idea of legislating to bar genetic discrimination in health insurance and employment. But there was plenty of mention of the...

Thomas, Johnson pose $174 billion question to Bushies. (Medicare Provider Payments).
February 18, 2002... At a Feb. 6 hearing, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Bill Thomas (R-CA) pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to be specific about which groups of Medicare providers should receive increases and which should be sent...

House passes economic stimulus legislation ... again.
February 18, 2002... * House Passes Economic Stimulus Legislation... Again. By a vote of 225-199, the House Feb. 14 adopted a third economic stimulus package. The bill includes the same sort of proposal that caused the two earlier House stimulus proposals to die...

New HHS panel will "triage" private-sector proposals.
February 18, 2002... * New HHS Panel Will "Triage" Private-Sector Proposals. A new council consisting of high-level representatives from agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services and from the departments of defense, veterans' affairs, and energy will...

Medicare appeals system too messed up for BIPA overhaul, says IG.
February 18, 2002... * Medicare Appeals System Too Messed Up For BIPA Overhaul, Says IG. In the Benefit Improvement and Protection Act of 2000, Congress established a uniform process and set time frames for handling all Medicare Part A and Part B coverage appeals....

Kansas turns down sale of Blues to Anthem.
February 18, 2002... * Kansas Turns Down Sale Of Blues To Anthem. Kansas Commissioner of Insurance Kathleen Sebelius Feb. 11 disallowed the proposed sale of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The sale would "weaken the...

Judge says managed care okay for Tennessee kids.
February 18, 2002... * Judge Says Managed Care Okay For Tennessee Kids. Officials of Tennessee's massive public coverage program, TennCare, over-interpreted his December court ruling to mean they couldn't use managed care for children's coverage, but that wasn't...

When we mandated coverage, we meant it, say Reps.
February 18, 2002... * When We Mandated Coverage, We Meant It, Say Reps. The bipartisan leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and its Health Subcommittee is pushing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to implement Congress's intent with...

Federation of State Medical Boards.
February 18, 2002... Former dean of Wake Forest University School of Medicine James Thompson, MD, will become the new executive vice president of the Federation of State Medical Boards March 4. The FSMB board of directors has been seeking a new chief for the group...

Can a focus on quality even out Medicare pay, control costs? (Perspectives).
February 18, 2002... As Congress furrows its collective brow over what to do about Medicare payments, two nagging questions keep recurring: Is it possible to rein in spending without compromising quality of care? Is it possible to pay adequately for good care...

BIPA appeals changes not optional for CMS, members say. (Medicare Appeals).(Brief Article)
February 25, 2002... Among numerous belt-tightening provisions for federal agencies included in the Bush administration's fiscal year 2003 budget proposal is a plan to significantly postpone adoption of new Medicare beneficiary appeals rights, enacted in the...

Court blasts Bristol-Myers' use of secondary patent. (Prescription Drug Patents).(Brief Article)
February 25, 2002... Two Feb. 14 decisions by federal district court judge John Koeltl could cost Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. hundreds of millions of dollars. They could also raise the stakes for brand-name drug companies trying to use secondary patents to ward off...

High court upholds widely used income eligibility rule. (Medicaid).
February 25, 2002... In a 6-3 decision Feb. 20, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of Wisconsin and around 30 other states to figure Medicaid income eligibility for married nursing home patients by including income transfers from the institutionalized spouse...

White House waiting on provider pay call. (Medicare Provider Payments).
February 25, 2002... The Bush administration's Medicare "priority this year is beneficiaries," for whom the president wants to provide prescription drug assistance and increased access to private health plan coverage through Medicare+Choice, Bush health policy...

Waxman, Grassley fault CMS nursing home Web site. (Quality Information).
February 25, 2002... Despite claiming on its front page to provide "detailed information about the performance of every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home in the country," the "Nursing Home Compare" Web site operated by the Centers for Medicare and...

Task force recommends mammography after 40. (Mammography).
February 25, 2002... Women aged 40 and older should have a mammogram to screen for breast cancer every one to two years, according to a new recommendation from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, a government-appointed expert panel. Two previous...

Chronically ill uninsured pose big challenge. (The Chronically Ill).
February 25, 2002... It would take a major effort and a considerable expenditure to meet the health care needs of the 4.7 million working-age Americans in "triple jeopardy" from low income, lack of insurance, and one or more chronic medical conditions. That message...

Koplan leaving CDC.
February 25, 2002... * Koplan Leaving CDC. The big three unfilled health posts in the year-old Bush administration -- National Institutes of Health director, Surgeon General, and Food and Drug Administration commissioner -- have now become the big four unfilled...

Prescription drug card proposed rule due "very soon.".
February 25, 2002... * Prescription Drug Card Proposed Rule Due "Very Soon." McClellan repeated another administration mantra that's been uttered again and again by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Tom Scully since last fall: A notice of proposed...

Federal judge dismisses some charges against big insurers.
February 25, 2002... * Federal Judge Dismisses Some Charges Against Big Insurers. A federal judge in Florida ruled Feb. 20 that insurance law in California, Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia bars plaintiffs in a class action suit against most of the nation's...

CMS keeps improper payment rate low.
February 25, 2002... * CMS Keeps Improper Payment Rate Low. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services improperly paid only about 6.3 percent of all Medicare fee-for-service claims in fiscal year 2001, a rate less than half of 13.6 percent error rate CMS posted...

Docs join across Atlantic to update Hippocratic oath.
February 25, 2002... * Docs Join Across Atlantic To Update Hippocratic Oath. British and American doctors have joined together to produce a new "Charter On Medical Professionalism." "Physicians today are experiencing frustration as changes in the health care...

Even in California, HMO enrollments drop.
February 25, 2002... * Even In California, HMO Enrollments Drop. In California, ancestral home of the closed-panel health maintenance organization, HMO enrollment dropped sharply between 2000 and 2001, from 55 percent of all covered workers to 48 percent, according...

Birth defect tracking lacking.
February 25, 2002... * Birth Defect Tracking Lacking. On a scale grad A through F, only eight states' programs for tracking data on birth defects merited the top grade of A and "even among these registries, certain minimum standards were not met," in a new analysis...

Postmarket surveillance supporter reported out as FDA candidate.
February 25, 2002... * Postmarket Surveillance Supporter Reported Out As FDA Candidate. The White House phoned Vanderbilt University Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Alastair Wood, MD, Feb. 18 to inform him that he was no longer in the running for the Food...

Employee Benefits Research Institute.
February 25, 2002... Danny Devine departs the Employee Benefits Research Institute, where he's directed media financial education since 1998. He's been appointed a special assistant in the Department of Veterans Affairs' office of congressional and legislative...

Modern Healthcare.
February 25, 2002... Departing as Modern Healthcare's Washington, DC, bureau chief is Jon Gardner. Gardner is joining the public affairs office of the journal Health Affairs.

Supply, demand curves collide; emergency care is the casualty. (Perspectives).
February 25, 2002... This is the first in a series of Perspectives on emergency department overcrowding that Medicine & Health will publish during the next several weeks. What's gone wrong in hospital emergency rooms? Everyone's heard by now of the high...