New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued new subpoenas to several health insurers in a broadening investigation of possible fraud. Cuomo is looking to subpoena testimony from the chief executives of Aetna Inc., Cigna Corp., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and WellPoint Inc., as well as executives of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Excellus, and the combined Group Health Inc. and HIP Health Plan. Cuomo says he believes the companies used the UnitedHealth Group-owned Ingenix to set rates, which resulted in consumers being reimbursed at unfair rates.
After more than a decade of struggle, the House passed a bill requiring most group health plans to provide more generous coverage for treatment of mental illnesses, comparable to what they provide for physical illnesses. The vote was 268 to 148, with 47 Republicans joining 221 Democrats in support of the measure. The Senate has passed a similar bill requiring equivalence, or parity, in coverage of mental and physical ailments. Federal law now allows insurers to discriminate, and most do so, by setting higher co-payments or stricter limits on mental health benefits.
The Cleveland Clinic is Ohio's leader when it comes to healthcare lobbying, according to federal disclosure reports. The Clinic last year spent more than $1.36 million to lobby the federal government.
A House committee has approved a bill to set minimum insurance reimbursements for Kentucky kidney dialysis centers that aren't in an insurer's contracted network. The House Banking and Insurance Committee voted 15-5 in favor of House Bill 433, with four members passing. The bill now goes to the full House for consideration. The measure was proposed by the dialysis industry because health insurers have drastically reduced the amounts paid to dialysis centers that haven't joined networks, which require acceptance of negotiated prices.
After seeing the success that a nine-hospital infection control pilot project had last year in California, Blue Shield of California announced last week that it will give $5.75 million to expand the program to at least 100 hospitals over the next year.
Cutbacks in the Medicaid program would have dire consequences for both the healthcare industry and poor people who depend on the services, according to leaders of Florida's hospitals, nursing homes, doctors, the healthcare union and spokesmen for the poor. Even without the cuts, some Florida officials are complaining about the services that Medicaid provides now, particularly in Broward County, where a pilot project puts poor patients into managed-care programs.