A new hospital assessment fee program created by the Indiana Medicaid system has worked out well so far for Indiana University Health and Community Health Network. The 2 Indianapolis-based hospital systems enjoyed net gains of $267 million and $23 million, respectively, from the program during the fiscal year ended June 30. The assessment fee program is a way to increase fed matching dollars paid to IN's hospitals through the federal-state Medicaid program. The federal government currently matches IN's spending on Medicaid at about a 2-to-1 ratio. And rules allow IN to raise its payments to hospitals in order to draw even larger fed payments.
The Supreme Court questioned a monopoly on hospital services in southwestern GA. The justices heard arguments in the federal government's claim that 2 private corporations used a public hospital authority to complete a deal that left one company as the owner of the only 2 hospitals in Albany. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says the deal violates federal antitrust law. Lower federal courts allowed Albany's Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital to buy Palmyra Medical Center from Hospital Corporation of America for $195 million over the FTC's objection.
Deadlines are looming for states to set up healthcare exchanges mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They can either run their own, opt for the federal government to take care of it or set up a partnership with the feds. FL, ID, IN, MT, NJ, PA, TN, UT, VA and WV were undecided as of Friday and have until Dec. 14 to decide whether to go it alone or until Feb. 15 to decide whether to partner with the Department of Health and Human Services or let the federal government run the whole exchange. Six states are planning to go into partnership with the federal government, 17 states have opted to relinquish control, and the other 17 states opted for the do-it-yourself approach so far.
Will Obamacare be targeted for possible budget cuts during upcoming talks in Washington aimed at averting a fiscal crisis in January? Speaker of the House John Boehner insists that it should be. The reality is that aspects of President Obama's health reforms likely will be discussed when negotiations over the so-called "fiscal cliff" heat up. But another reality is that Obamacare is now the law of the land, and isn't going to be repealed or changed in any major way as a result of a final fiscal deal.
The voters have ensured that ObamaCare will now move forward. Close to 33% of states have refused to set up health insurance exchanges, and a similar number is contemplating the refusal of Medicaid expansion. If Obamacare fails, it will not open the door for reconsideration of alternative reforms advocated by the Republican opposition. The refusal to advance the ObamaCare implementation at the state level will not generate a sincere discussion of meaningful compromises by this Administration. The reality is that President Obama and the Democrats' fallback plan for ObamaCare's failure is fully nationalized, single payer healthcare.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last week awarded a $15 billion contract to consolidate data centers and manage its immense stores of data. Eight vendors were awarded spots on the 10-year contract, called the Virtual Data Center contract. They will provide applications hosting, telecommunications and networking, disaster recovery, enterprise security, and other services. The contract will help consolidate the agency's data centers to between 6 and 8, reduce energy consumption and eliminate duplicative spending on hardware and software, said the agency's CIO, Tony Trenkle. CMS manages a network of 80-plus data centers and stores and maintains 370 terabytes of Medicare data and 30 terabytes of Medicaid data.