Eleven Republican governors, including Florida's Rick Scott, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and Arizona's Jan Brewer want to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss the federal health overhaul, including ways to make expanding the Medicaid rolls and setting up online health exchanges more affordable for states with tight budgets. The letter requesting the meeting comes after the Obama administration said Monday that states can do a partial Medicaid expansion but that they wouldn't get the three years of 100 percent federal funding provided under the law. Scott had previously requested to meet with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to discuss his concerns that the law could burden state taxpayers.
Pennsylvania will not set up its own health care exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act, at least not for now, Gov. Tom Corbett said Wednesday, putting the state on a course to join others led by Republicans that will let President Barack Obama?s administration run its exchange. Setting up a state-based exchange would be irresponsible, Corbett said, as he faulted federal authorities for what he called inadequate answers to his questions about cost and other issues. "Health care reform is too important to be achieved through haphazard planning," Corbett said. "Pennsylvania taxpayers and businesses deserve more. They deserve informed decision making and a strong plan that responsibly uses taxpayer dollars."
Better coordination among doctors and hospitals. More transparency in medical costs and outcomes. New models of care, like sharing your doctor's appointment with a small group of patients suffering from the same condition. These are among a litany of critical checkpoints that need to happen, healthcare leaders say, to take the country from the post-election relief many advocates of health reform felt to making the 2010 law to expand health care access a success. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement released a report Wednesday outlining the path hospitals, doctors, insurers, and states need to take to bridge the gap between the care that now exists and the care that health reform is striving for.
Kaiser Health News asked a range of health policy experts the following question: If you could make only one change to Medicare to control costs, what would it be and why? Edited excerpts of their answers follow. The article references 19 experts.
A key cost-saving measure in Gov. John Kasich's transformation plan for Medicaid—the state's insurance for the poor—has been approved by federal regulators, the governor's office said today. Ohio has reached an agreement with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to coordinate care across the state for those seniors who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. Those dual-eligible residents are often aged 65 or older and meet certain low-income requirements.
Executives of Mercy Health System of Maine deny that they misled the Massachusetts company that negotiated to buy the hospital group in Greater Portland before the talks ended abruptly on Friday. Mercy officials responded Tuesday to a report in The Boston Globe that said Steward Health Care System "unilaterally withdrew" from talks because the Catholic nonprofit organization misrepresented the condition of its finances and operations.