In less than five months, on Oct. 1, the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges will go live online. Millions of Americans will suddenly be able to log on to a website and choose their own heath-care coverage from a menu of subsidized options for prices and coverage levels. As the opening day gets closer, anxiety is increasing over how well these online exchanges will function. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia are operating their own exchanges, seven states are operating exchanges in partnership with the federal government, and the federal government is running exchanges for the remaining 26 states that opted not to create their own.
A Texas doctor sued the U.S. over President Barack Obama's health-care reforms on claims the U.S. Supreme Court overlooked when it upheld the Affordable Care Act last year. Steven Hotze of Houston claims the law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, violates the U.S. Constitution's origination and takings clauses, which weren't part of arguments before the Supreme Court. The high court upheld the act by a 5-to-4 vote. Hotze's suit, filed today in federal court in Houston, targets the "shared responsibility payment" business owners will be required to pay the U.S. under the act if they choose not to provide government-approved minimum health coverage for their workers. That penalty kicks in on Jan. 1.
WASHINGTON — Though it's little comfort to Central Florida veterans, top Veterans Affairs officials told Congress on Tuesday that they've learned from their mistakes in trying to build a new VA hospital at Lake Nona, which is now years behind schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. But lawmakers on the U.S. House Veterans' Affairs Committee were unconvinced and questioned whether the agency had taken the proper steps to improve. "I am not quite certain VA is getting the message that its construction program is dysfunctional and not in keeping with industry best practices or veterans' expectations," said U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., who chairs the committee's oversight panel.
What if you're doctor smoked marijuana and then performed surgery on you? Not a comforting thought, but it could happen. That is why two Johns Hopkins doctors and patient safety experts say hospitals should make alcohol and drug tests mandatory for physicians. The doctors shared their views in a commentary published online April 29 in The Journal of the American Medical Association. They say doctors should also be tested if a patient dies suddenly or is unexpectedly injured during surgery.
People with health insurance saw increases in their medical costs slow from 2009 to 2011, signaling potential structural changes in the industry that could cut health-care inflation and save the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars, according to two studies. People with health insurance saw increases in their medical costs slow from 2009 to 2011, signaling potential structural changes in the industry that could cut health-care inflation and save the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars, according to two studies.
The College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME) has proposed a one-year extension of Meaningful Use stage 2 to "maximize the opportunity of program success." According to the organization of healthcare CIOs, an additional 12 months to meet the stage 2 requirements "will give providers the opportunity to optimize their EHR technology and achieve the benefits of stage 1 and stage 2; it will give vendors the time needed to prepare, develop and deliver needed technology to correspond with Stage 3; and it will give policy makers time to assess and evaluate programmatic trends needed to craft thoughtful Stage 3 rules."