Medicine & Health articles from February 2004

Medicine & Health archives from February 2004

Bush to project Medicare bill over $530 billion.(Medicare Costs)
February 2, 2004... When it issues its budget on Feb. 2, the Bush administration will project a 10-year cost in excess of $530 billion for last winter's Medicare overhaul and prescription-drug benefit. This estimate is substantially greater than the $395...

End of FMAP hike means Medicaid strain for states.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)(temporary federal Medicaid assistance)
February 2, 2004... The national economic slump seems to be ending, and states have become more cautious healthcare spenders during the downturn. Nevertheless, states aren't out of the woods when it comes to the budgetary strains of Medicaid, according to several...

GOP touts health victories.(2004)
February 2, 2004... The Bush administration and congressional Republicans are kicking off the 2004 election season with a celebration of health-policy goals they've accomplished since taking control of the executive and legislative branches in 2002 and adding a...

Holtz-Eakin: Medicare bill choices preclude his bargaining.(Medicare Drugs)
February 2, 2004... One of the biggest Democratic complaints about the recently passed Medicare bill has been the "noninterference clause," which prohibits the federal government from interfering with the negotiations between drugmakers and sponsors of...

Broad coverage bill unlikely this year.(Upcoming On The Hill)
February 2, 2004... Congress will spend a great deal of time this year discussing the problem of the uninsured. However, given tight budget constraints and the election-heightened philosophical divide between the parties on how to expand coverage, comprehensive...

Complexity for consumers huge hurdle for Medicare Rx bill.(Medicare Drug Bill)
February 2, 2004... Offering Medicare beneficiaries reliable, comprehensible information to aid their choices in drug coverage will be a daunting task, but it's crucial to success of the Medicare prescription-drug legislation. That was the opinion voiced by John...

US trade demand could harm Americans later, say dems.(Pharmaceutical Prices)
February 2, 2004... Several aspects of a U.S. gambit to get Australia to change the way it buys pharmaceuticals as part of a free-trade agreement could harm American pharmaceutical consumers down the line, a group of House Democrats wrote President Bush earlier...

Slow start for tax credit.(Trade Assistance Tax Credit)
February 2, 2004... The new health coverage tax credit available to trade-displaced workers, some retirees, and their dependents has so far been taken up by only about 25,000 of the 260,000 people nationwide who are thought to be eligible. The program--which...

Extra pounds up disabilities for younger adults.(Obesity)
February 2, 2004... The obesity epidemic is pushing up disability rates among working-age adults, according to a study in the January/February Health Affairs. This finding likely means more costs in the short term for private and public disability insurance,...

Red Ink Continues.(In Other News)(federal deficit grows)
February 2, 2004... In "baseline" estimates released Jan. 26, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal government will run a fiscal year 2004 deficit of $477 billion, a record in dollar terms but not as a percentage of gross domestic product. ...

Benefits Swell As Percentage Of Payroll.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Employee benefits increased from 39 percent of payroll costs to 43.2 percent from 2001 to 2002, says an annual survey by the United States Chamber of Commerce. Among nearly 400 companies that responded, in 2002 workers got an average of...

Another one bites the dust ... er ... moves on to a better world? After six years on the Hill, House Ways and Means Committee Staff Director John McManus departs to open a consulting firm, The McManus Group.(People)(Brief Article)
February 2, 2004... Another one bites the dust... er... moves on to a better world? After six years on the Hill, House Ways and Means Committee Staff Director John McManus departs to open a consulting firm, The McManus Group. The leader of staff negotiations on...

Plans expand benefits, lower prices using Rx-law funds.(Medicare Private Plans)
February 9, 2004... New funding increases for private insurers in the Medicare Advantage--formerly Medicare+Choice--program will soon improve benefits and lower prices for beneficiaries. That's according to a survey released Feb. 3 by the merged insurance...

Many health programs get dinged in White House budget.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
February 9, 2004... With spending growth for non-defense, non-homeland-security programs held to under half a percent, "it's going to be a tough year" on the budget scene. So said Bill Hoagland, budget and appropriations director for Senate Majority Leader Bill...

Ricin attack renews focus on preparedness.(Bioterrorism)
February 9, 2004... When the Dirksen Senate Office Building reopens Monday at 7:00 AM, barring unforeseen events, Congress will have emerged relatively unscathed from the ricin found in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-TN) mailroom on the afternoon of Feb....

GOP focuses on 'hard core' uninsured.(The Uninsured)
February 9, 2004... The number most often associated with the issue of the uninsured is 43 million, which represents the number of uninsured people on any given day during a year. But some Republicans are arguing that this quantity overstates the problem. For...

Hospitals not thrilled with quality forum nursing measures.(Quality Measurement)
February 9, 2004... The all-stakeholder National Quality Forum Jan. 30 endorsed a set of voluntary performance measures for nursing-sensitive care, but hospital groups have objected to several of the measures. The 15 measures adopted--four more were sent back...

$1 billion: enough to implement new law?(CMS Administration)
February 9, 2004... Saying that their agency was swamped, officials of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently told some health plans to delay filing their intentions for participation in the Medicare Advantage program, AAHP-HIAA President Karen...

Ignagni: low take-up of trade tax credit a reason for congress to allow slimmer plans, spurn AHPs.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... Low take-up of the new federal tax credit for people who are unemployed because of trade issues concerns insurers, AAHP-HIAA President Karen Ignagni tells M&H. Insurers are asking federal officials to reconsider what coverage options should be...

VA secretary breaks Taboo, says he wanted more money than Bush budget offers.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... One of those things that never happens in Washington happened Feb. 4. Rather than chirpily endorsing the administration's fiscal year 2005 budget proposal for the Department of Veterans Affairs--as has long been the norm for executive-branch...

Snowe, Wyden propose reopening Medicare bill.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... A Republican and a Democratic senator who voted for the Medicare bill have joined those pushing to remove the legislation's "noninterference" clause that prohibits the government from using its purchasing clout to get lower prices from...

Frist: 100 percent coverage impossible, 93 percent not working so well either.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... "It is impossible to get everybody covered," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) said Feb. 6 when asked whether GOP plans for dealing with the uninsured would aim at universal coverage. Frist said his home state of Tennessee has managed to...

House ethics panel began investigating medicare bill bribe story in December.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct confirmed Feb. 4 that it began a fact-finding investigation Dec. 8 into Rep. Nick Smith's (R-MI) suggestion that backers of the Medicare prescription-drug bill offered monetary support for...

GOP-connected firm big player on medicare ads.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... Alexandria VA-based National Media Inc. is buying $9.5 million worth of television advertising to air a 30-second commercial aimed at Medicare beneficiaries about the new prescription-drug law. The contract is part of a $12.6 million overall...

Oregon health plan to see new cuts after voters reject tax.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... For the second time in a year, Oregon voters Feb. 3 resoundingly defeated a proposed tax increase, a decision the state's governor says will cut 50,000 more working-poor people from the rolls of the Oregon Health Plan, the ambitious program...

Scanlon has answer to "you and whose army?".(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... United States Comptroller David Walker, who heads the General Accounting Office, is the rare person in today's polarized Washington who can reach across partisan and cameral barriers to unite members of Congress behind a common goal....

Judiciary-approved bill would protect the gold in the arches from lawsuits.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... The House Judiciary Committee Jan. 28 approved HR 339 to prohibit the obese and over-weight from suing food sellers and manufacturers for weight-gain related injuries. Sponsor Ric Keller (R-FL) charged that "trial lawyers have targeted the...

CMS gets 100+ drug card applications.(In Other News)
February 9, 2004... One hundred and six applicants seek to offer Medicare-approved discount drug cards beginning in June, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Feb. 5. About a quarter would offer cards in particular regions, a quarter would offer...

House Energy and Commerce Committee head Billy Tauzin (R-LA) will resign the panel chairmanship Feb. 16 and will not seek reelection to Congress this fall.(People)
February 9, 2004... House Energy and Commerce Committee head Billy Tauzin (R-LA) will resign the panel chairmanship Feb. 16 and will not seek reelection to Congress this fall. Tauzin is mulling a move to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America,...

Spending growth peaked in 2002, CMS actuaries say.(Health Spending)
February 16, 2004... When all the data are in, the health-care spending growth rate will turn out to have slowed in 2003, according to the annual projection by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services actuaries. Health-spending growth for 2003 is projected at 7.8...

Medicare crystal ball now working overtime.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
February 16, 2004... There are more questions than answers on how the Medicare prescription-drug and private-plan overhaul legislation will play out. Nevertheless, with the clock ticking on the run-up to 2006, when the law's biggest provisions are scheduled for...

Scientists derive stem cells from cloned embryo.(Cloning)
February 16, 2004... For the first time, scientists have succeeded in obtaining stem cells from a very early-stage human embryo produced through cloning. The work, by researchers led by Seoul National University's Woo Suk Hwang, is a major step towards the...

Status of commissioned corps still unsettled.(Public Health)
February 16, 2004... Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-MD) expressed concern Feb. 12 that Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson had implemented a controversial plan to render the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps better able to deploy quickly...

Thomas takes aim again at tax-favored employer coverage.(Tax Treatment of Health Coverage)
February 16, 2004... House Ways and Means Committee Chair Bill Thomas (R-CA) continues his long campaign to limit the favorable tax treatment of employer-sponsored health coverage, he told a National Center for Policy Analysis forum Feb. 12. Curtailing the...

Study: healthy, sickest gain in consumer-directed plans.(Consumer-Directed Coverage)
February 16, 2004... Healthy people save an average of $584 when they choose a consumer-directed plan over managed-care-type coverage, while very sick people gain an average of $300 by choosing consumer-directed coverage. Meanwhile, "slightly" or "moderately" sick...

FTC challenges 2000 hospital merger.(Antitrust)
February 16, 2004... The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to undo Evanston Northwestern Healthcare's January 2000 acquisition of Highland Park Hospital. In a Feb. 10 administrative complaint, the FTC claims that the merger of ENH's two Cook County Illinois...

Thompson plans to pull altered disparities report in favor of original.(In Other News)
February 16, 2004... Rewriting the executive summary of a health care disparities report to make it more positive was a "mistake" that "will be rectified," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Feb. 10. Thompson told the House Ways and Means...

Frist disparities bill would reauthorize Title VII programs.(In Other News)
February 16, 2004... On Feb. 12, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) introduced legislation designed to reduce health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minorities and other underserved populations. S. 2091, which Frist says will be one of his biggest...

Trade negotiators reach agreement to tinker some with Australian drug-buying mechanism.(In Other News)
February 16, 2004... The new free-trade agreement between the United States and Australia--which must still be approved by legislators in both countries--makes fewer changes in Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme than the U.S. pharmaceutical industry hoped...

Senate GOP goes to incremental approach on medical liability.(In Other News)
February 16, 2004... Blocked last year by Democrats when they tried to limit noneconomic damages in medical liability cases across the board, Senate Republicans will now try to limit awards against obstetrician-gynecologists. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist...

Actuaries say more plans per region equal more costs.(In Other News)
February 16, 2004... In the opinion of the actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, when congressional conferees decided not to limit participation in the Medicare Advantage program to the three lowest-bidding PPOs in each region, that bumped...

MedPAC says hospitals misunderstand its productivity-growth measure.(In Other News)
February 16, 2004... Hospitals miss the point when they argue that the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission shouldn't make hospital-payment recommendations using a productivity target that relates to the economy as a whole, says a Feb. 9 MedPAC letter. Earlier this...

Dem bones, dem bones, dem bare bones?(In Other News)
February 16, 2004... Tax credits to help trade-displaced workers replace their lost employer-based health coverage are off to a slow start. Many eligible workers still find coverage unaffordable even though the "Trade Adjustment Assistance" credits are more...

House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee.(People)
February 16, 2004... Joel White is the new staff director of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. He's been deputy staff director and has supervised a variety of health issues on the panel, including Medicare prescription-drug provisions and tax credits....

Moving into White's old spot is Kathleen Weldon, formerly of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.(People)
February 16, 2004... Moving into White's old spot is Kathleen Weldon, formerly of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In her previous position, she worked with Medicare issues and issues involving the uninsured.

HHS to AHA: don't blame feds for uninsured charges.(Health and Human Services, American Hospital Association)
February 23, 2004... Nothing in federal law prohibits hospitals from offering discounts to needy Medicare beneficiaries and the uninsured, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a Feb. 19 letter to American Hospital Association President Dick...

Policymaker seek elusive cures for health disparities.(Medical care discrimination)
February 23, 2004... One item sure to be on Washington's agenda this year: moving legislation to help ease disparities in health and health care that are related to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has declared such...

McClellan to take over Medicare, Medicaid agency.(CMS)(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... It's official: Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Mark McClellan, MD, is the president's nominee to replace Tom Scully as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the White House announced Feb. 20. McClellan, who is...

Hospital charges, charity care get scrutiny nationwide.(Hospital Charges)
February 23, 2004... Florida state lawmakers, business, consumer, and insurance groups are backing legislation that would require hospitals to disclose their standard charges for services and supplies before a patient receives care. The call for legislative...

FDA pushes transmitters to protect drug supply.(Rx Drug Counterfeiting, United States Food and Drug Administration)
February 23, 2004... Tiny electronic chips that record the progress of each drug shipment and transmit the shipment's "pedigree" to purchasers are a key part of the Food and Drug Administration's strategy to combat the sale of counterfeit prescription drugs. ...

Bracing yourself for another balanced budget act?(Budget deficit)
February 23, 2004... Budget cuts affecting Medicare and other health programs could soon be in the news again, as federal account books show nothing but deficits in the foreseeable future and lawmakers begin to sweat over the red ink. In an initial round of the...

Another round in battle over SCHIP $$ for adults.(State children's health insurance program funds not for childless adults)
February 23, 2004... A bipartisan quartet of senators is urging Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to stop allowing states to use unspent State Children's Health Insurance Program funds to cover childless adults. "Simply put, using SCHIP...

FDA urges shorter and clearer risk info.(Direct-To-Consumer Drug Ads)
February 23, 2004... The Food and Drug Administration wants direct-to-consumer print advertisements for prescription drugs to lay out the most significant risks associated with a drug in uncluttered, consumer-friendly prose, rather than the endless blocks of small...

Numbers up for hospital reporting initiative.(National voluntary hospital reporting initiative, 3,008 hospitals)(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... A total of 3,008 hospitals have signed up for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative, American Hospital Association policy chief Nancy Foster said Feb. 20. Just over 1,400 hospitals...

JCAHO will use NQF nursing-sensitive care measures by 2005.(In Other News)(Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Operations)(National Quality Forum)(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Operations, which has been using its own standards to screen hospitals for potential patient-care problems, will begin using the nursing-sensitive care measures recently approved by the...

AMA on-board with incremental approach to limiting medical liability.(In Other News)(American Medical Association)(healthcare reform)(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... The American Medical Association has endorsed S 2061, a bill that would put a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages against obstetrician-gynecologists, and which Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) plans to bring to the floor Feb. 23. ...

Hogan & Hartson.(People)(employees)(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... Yet another top congressional aide for the Medicare prescription-drug legislation leaves the Hill. Senate Finance Committee health-policy director Linda Fishman joins the legislative and regulatory practice of the law firm Hogan & Hartson.

Finance health-policy adviser Mark Hayes replaces Fishman.(People)(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... Finance health-policy adviser Mark Hayes replaces Fishman. He's previously worked for Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Jim Jeffords (I-VT).