The pharmaceutical and medical device industries, even when required by the federal government, have not made it easy to track their expenditures on doctors and teaching hospitals. It has taken ProPublica several months to spot and fix errors in the Open Payments database, which the federal government released at the end of September. (The government released an updated version of the database in mid-December, but that is not included in this analysis.) Some companies misspelled the names of drugs and devices, which made it difficult to tally spending. Others referred to their products by more than one name. Some companies listed their medical devices as drugs, while other companies reported payments to doctors or teaching hospitals but left off which products were related to the payments.
More than four years after the law's passage, Republicans are as insistent as ever that Obamacare is destined to fail. Illustrating their commitment to taking down the law, the GOP-led House on Thursday is voting on a bill that would make a major adjustment to the Affordable Care Act. "Just because we can't fix Obamacare doesn't mean we can't start to get rid of its worst features," Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote in a USA Today op-ed this week. The bill up for consideration Thursday is the Save American Workers Act.
The Affordable Care Act may be helping to slow down the ever-growing costs of health care, according to a new report. Still, the health care law has yet to entirely live up to its name. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums grew more slowly in 31 states and the District of Columbia between 2010 and 2013 -- after the passage of Obamacare -- compared with 2003 to 2010, according to the nonpartisan foundation the Commonwealth Fund. The slowdown in the growth in premiums is tied to the recent historic slowdown in health care costs, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal told reporters Wednesday, and could be attributed to a variety of factors.
The federal Obamacare marketplace saw another slow holiday-interrupted week—but inched closer to official goals of enrolling more than 9 million people nationally in 2015. By last Friday, 6.59 million people had selected a health insurance plan or been automatically re-enrolled in an existing plan sold through HealthCare.gov, officials revealed Wednesday. From Dec. 27 through last Friday, a period that included New Year's Eve and day, just 102,896 people selected an insurance plan on HealthCare.gov, which serves the 37 states not running their own Obamacare marketplace, officials said.
Some small-business owners are snubbing the new health-insurance exchanges, operating under the Small Business Health Options Program, citing limited federal tax credits and a small menu of insurance offerings in a few states, companies and health-insurance brokers said. Under the program, small businesses in 33 states have been able since Nov. 15 to buy coverage for their employees through HealthCare.gov, the Affordable Care Act's online insurance enrollment site. The federal government operates SHOP exchanges in these states, which include Delaware, Georgia and Missouri. Seventeen others and the District of Columbia choose to operate their own SHOP marketplaces. [Subscription Required]
Aetna Inc. and Jefferson Hospital said Wednesday they signed a two-year contract renewal, ending a dispute that threatened to block in-network access to the hospital for thousands of patients in the South Hills region of Pittsburgh. Spokesmen for Aetna and Allegheny Health Network, which owns Jefferson, said they were pleased to have resolved the conflict. Neither would disclose details of the contract. "We are very pleased that Aetna members will be able to continue receiving in-network access to care at Jefferson Regional and across Allegheny Health Network without disruption," Aetna spokesman Walt Cherniak said.