The basic Medicare premium will shoot up next year by 15%, to $110.50 a month, federal officials announced. The increase means that monthly premiums would top $100 for the first time, and about 27% of Medicare beneficiaries will have to pay higher premiums or have the additional amounts paid on their behalf. The other 73% will be shielded from the increase because, under federal law, their Medicare premiums cannot go up more than the increase in their Social Security benefits.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run healthcare plan to compete with private insurers has majority support from the public. Independents and senior citizens, two groups crucial to the debate, have warmed to the idea of a public option, and are particularly supportive if it would be administered by the states and limited to those without access to affordable private coverage.
Mergers-and-acquisitions activity among U.S. healthcare companies is on pace for one of its strongest years, the Wall Street Journal reports. In addition, while overall deal activity in the U.S. has tumbled, the value of healthcare deals this year is up from 2007 and 2008. Two factors are driving the deals: continued easy access to financing and efforts by healthcare companies to find new revenue, the Journal reports.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is expected to announce a plan that would give state insurance regulators the authority to review health insurance premiums that are charged to small businesses, an approach meant to stem growing healthcare costs. The administration will begin looking more in depth at the healthcare premiums charged to small businesses, partly in an effort to resolve complaints that small firms are being driven to the brink of bankruptcy by double-digit rate increases, the Boston Globe reports.
As clinic competition heats up in Florida's Miami-Dade County and Congress looks at trimming its payments to Medicare health maintenance organizations, the Humana-owned CAC clinics are expanding services by keeping three clinics open weeknights until 10 p.m. and having doctors make house calls to certain seniors. The CAC centers serve patients in the CarePlus Medicare HMOs.
The move comes as CAC's major competitor, Leon Medicare Centers, opens two huge new clinics in Florida, built at a cost of $80 million.
President Obama continues to support the concept of a government-sponsored insurance option, but "he is not demanding that it is in" the final legislation, Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "He thinks it's the best possible choice." White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, in two television appearances during the weekend, noted that the public option could provide much-needed competition, but that "it's not the defining piece of healthcare."