Medicine & Health articles from February 2005

Medicine & Health archives from February 2005

Leavitt calls for $60 billion in Medicaid savings.(Medicaid Budget)
February 7, 2005... The time for major changes in Medicaid is now, Mike Leavitt said Feb. 2 in his maiden speech as Health and Human Services Secretary. Leavitt said states should have more flexibility in deciding what services they provide to "optional"...

Gearing up for a game of Medicaid hot potato.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
February 7, 2005... When it comes to Washington's 2005 debate on health care, one thing is certain: Medicaid will be on the table. What's less clear is whether the most important questions will even be asked, let alone answered. Propelled by federal worries...

Going cap in hand to states ... or having congress do it.
February 7, 2005... Each state's SCHIP allotment is capped. Speaking to reporters after the briefing, Leavitt promised that the administration would not cap federal Medicaid payments for mandatory services to mandatory beneficiaries. But he pointedly did not make...

Bush to propose $142 billion in coverage, $82 billion new.(Federal Budget)
February 7, 2005... When President Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget is unveiled Feb. 7, it will include $142 billion over 10 years in new coverage initiatives, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mark McClellan told reporters Feb. 4. McClellan...

Will the federal government offer states P4P for Medicaid?(Pay for Performance)
February 7, 2005... Who's next in the barrel for pay for performance? It might be states that seek more flexibility to design their Medicaid programs, according to comments made Feb. 2 by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mark McClellan. In the...

Congress, administration to look at P4P as group-practice demo opens.
February 7, 2005... The Bush administration also will work closely with a motivated, bipartisan Congress to move forward with P4P for Medicare providers in 2005, McClellan said Jan. 31. In its budget proposal to be released this week, the administration will call...

NIH seeks to balance peer review, open access.(Access To Research)
February 7, 2005... The National Institutes of Health is asking scientists to provide public access to published peer-reviewed articles that result in whole or in part from NIH-funded research. Under a policy announced Feb. 3, NIH is requesting that authors...

NIH "bright-line" bans outside employment.(Conflicts of Interest)
February 7, 2005... Under sweeping new ethics rules unveiled Feb. 1 by National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni, MD, all NIH employees will be barred from consulting and other forms of employment, whether paid or unpaid, with pharmaceutical,...

Broad assault coming on health costs ... or else.(Medicare and the Budget)
February 7, 2005... Neither Medicare nor the American health-care system as a whole will look fiscally sustainable in a few decades unless a variety of cost-containing, value-producing changes come into play. That was the message of an expert panel of economists...

At the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee freshman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) heads the panel's new Bioterrorism Preparedness and Public Health Subcommittee.(People)
February 7, 2005... At the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee freshman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) heads the panel's new Bioterrorism Preparedness and Public Health Subcommittee. HELP's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services subpanel has been...

Budget bottom line is the bottom line.(Bush Administration Budget)
February 14, 2005... With the federal budget deficit high, the Bush administration's fiscal year 2006 budget proposal arrived on Capitol Hill Feb. 7 directing lawmakers to keep an extraordinarily tight rein on domestic spending in 2005. While health fares...

IGT ban, flexibility on tap for Medicaid, but what for Medicare?
February 14, 2005... With Congress in search of budget savings this year, it's clear that one of public health care's two 800-pound gorillas--Medicaid--is on the table for surgery. The White House laid out some specific economizing proposals for Medicaid in the...

VA Health chief says lean increase is enough.(Veterans Health)
February 14, 2005... The Bush administration is requesting $30.7 billion for the Veterans Health Administration in fiscal year 2006. That's a 2.5 percent increase in nominal terms, said Rita Reed, deputy assistant secretary for budget at the Department of Veterans...

House to wade into doc pay issue, but next steps are unclear.(Medicare Physician Payment)
February 14, 2005... House health leaders apparently intend to develop a long-term fix for Medicare's troubled sustainable growth rate formula for physician payment. House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chair Nancy Johnson (R-CT) said Feb. 10 that she's in...

Reimportation proponents come together on new bill.(Reimportation)
February 14, 2005... On February 9 Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) reintroduced legislation, S 334, to allow the importation into the United States, without the manufacturer's consent, of less expensive prescription drugs. Dorgan said the...

AARP wins delay in EEOC retiree benefits rule.(Age Discrimination)(American Association of Retired Persons)(Equal Employment Opportunity Council)
February 14, 2005... A federal trial judge in Philadelphia has temporarily blocked a regulation that would allow employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they become eligible for Medicare or state-sponsored retiree health benefits. In...

As federal courts dismiss hospital-charge cases, Scruggs moves to the states.(In Other News)(Richard Scruggs)
February 14, 2005... Over the past few months, federal district court judges have dismissed all federal and some state claims in several of the lawsuits filed last year against not-for-profit hospital chains on behalf of uninsured patients. Now, with their federal...

Senate panel passes risk-pool funding, genetic information discrimination ban.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
February 14, 2005... The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved legislation Feb. 8 prohibiting some disclosures and uses of individuals' genetic information and prohibiting use of such information to discriminate in health insurance or...

Brailer: feds must help small providers adopt IT or risk losing market competition in health care.(In Other News)(David Brailer)(Brief Article)
February 14, 2005... "We have a profound 'adoption gap'" for clinical information technology, said federal health IT chief David Brailer, MD, at AcademyHealth's Feb. 2 policy conference. Big health-system players with significant market share are adopting...

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.(People)(Brief Article)
February 14, 2005... After over two decades as Democratic staff director for health policy on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, David Nexon leaves the Hill. The long-time advisor to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) will be senior executive vice...

FDA still faces questions on drug safety.(Rx Drug Safety)(Independent Drug Safety Oversight Board)
February 21, 2005... The Food and Drug Administration is calling it an Independent Drug Safety Oversight Board, but it's not independent enough for critics like Senate Finance Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The FDA said the board, unveiled by Health and Human...

Employer Part D subsidy may slightly slow retiree-coverage decline.
February 21, 2005... The Medicare drug benefit wasn't intended to work alone but in concert with other sources of drug coverage, especially employment-based health plans. That's a mantra that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mark McClellan...

Mixed-message flu season hinders pandemic preparation.(Flu Vaccine)
February 21, 2005... States, medical providers, and the public remain confused and frustrated by the on-again, off-again shortage-and-then-surplus nature of the 2004-2005 influenza-vaccine supply. That confusion is likely to carry over into next year, complicating...

FDA: too soon to predict next season's vaccine supply.(Flu Vaccine)
February 21, 2005... To head off future vaccine shortages like the one that hit this flu season, the Food and Drug Administration is improving communications channels with international drug regulators to ensure earlier warning about potential supply-line problems...

MedPAC: set Medicare doc pay updates based on pay adequacy.(Medicare Physician Payment)
February 21, 2005... The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission wants Congress to replace the current system of automatic formula-driven annual payment updates for Medicare physicians with a new system "based on an analysis of payment adequacy." That's what MedPAC...

On Medicaid, finance crowd is tough for Leavitt.(Medicaid)(Mike Leavitt )
February 21, 2005... At a Feb. 16 Senate Finance Committee hearing, senior panel Democrat Max Baucus (MT) pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt for details on how the administration's proposed cuts would affect specific states. The...

Senate hopes for better fate in house for genetic discrimination bill.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
February 21, 2005... Senate Hopes for Better Fate In House For Genetic Discrimination Bill. The Senate voted 98-0 Feb. 17 to bar employers and health insurers from discriminating against an individual on the basis of his or her genetic risk factors for disease. ...

Medco says it will apply to be a nationwide PDP.(In Other News)(Prescription drug plans)
February 21, 2005... Medco Says It Will Apply To Be A Nationwide PDP. Presenting a valentine to the Bush administration, Medco Health Systems said Feb. 14 that it would offer prescription drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries across the country. "We are...

Senate Budget Committee wishes it were Senate Finance Committee.(In Other News)
February 21, 2005... Senate Budget Committee Wishes It Were Senate Finance Committee. At a Senate Budget Committee hearing Feb. 16, the panel "had more ideas come to the fore" on how to save money in Medicare than "any session I've been at." So said top-ranking...

Senate Finance Committee.(People)(Brief Article)
February 21, 2005... Rodney Whitlock joins the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee. A decade-plus veteran aide to Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), he'll tackle Medicaid issues on the other side of the Hill.

Expect scrutiny of health prices as spending continues upward.
February 28, 2005... On average, national spending on health care is expected to see an annual growth rate of around 7 and a half percent in the decade from 2004 through 2014. Considerably higher than projected growth for the U.S. economy overall during the...

States scramble for ways to cover working uninsured.(.)
February 28, 2005... Even as states and the federal government complain that Medicaid costs are overstraining their budgets, the percentage of Americans who have no insurance at all continues to rise. As in the past, this year's Bush administration budget...

Justices jump back into assisted suicide dispute.
February 28, 2005... The Supreme Court will be the site of the next battle in the Bush administration's war against Oregon's law permitting physician-assisted suicide. The Death With Dignity Act, the only law of its kind in the country, allows physicians to...

Craig delivers mixed verdict on VA savings measures.
February 28, 2005... Republicans on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee have agreed to an administration proposal to charge relatively well-off veterans without service-related disabilities a $250 fee for enrolling in government-provided health benefits. ...

CMS happy with local Medicare plan applications.
February 28, 2005... The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has received applications from health plans seeking to offer more than 141 new local Medicare Advantage plans in 2005, the agency announced Feb. 18. "Beginning later this year... there will...

Outterson: reimportation might unlock R&D cost data.
February 28, 2005... A United States drive to eliminate foreign "price controls" on prescription drugs would likely lead to only one additional innovative new drug every 12 to 13 years, University of West Virginia law professor Kevin Outterson said at a Feb. 17...

Feds release reports on quality, disparities.(Brief article)
February 28, 2005... Feds Release Reports On Quality, Disparities. Guess Which One They Call "Pervasive"? What a difference a year makes: In the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's 2004 health disparities report released Feb. 22, federal analysts find...

Bush budget would add 25 drug safety staffers.(IN OTHER NEWS)
February 28, 2005... Bush Budget Would Add 25 Drug Safety Staffers. The president's fiscal year 2006 budget proposal would beef up staffing at the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Drug Safety by 25 employees "specializing in epidemiological research, risk...

Strategic Management Services.(Michael Mangano appointed)(Brief article)
February 28, 2005... Michael Mangano is now vice president at the health care consulting firm Strategic Management Services. The widely respected Mangano worked in the Health and Human Services Inspector General's Office for 25 years, including 8 years as the...