Health insurer WellPoint Inc. is buying managed care provider Amerigroup Corp. for about $4.46 billion in cash, saying the deal will help it better serve Medicaid participants. Amerigroup manages publicly-funded health programs like Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides coverage for the needy and disabled. It operates in 13 states, including Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey.
Critics of the new healthcare law are mounting a challenge to President Obama’s interpretation of another important provision, health insurance exchanges, under which the federal government will subsidize health insurance for millions of low- and middle-income people. At issue is whether the subsidies will be available in exchanges set up and run by the federal government in states that fail or refuse to establish their own exchanges. Critics say the law allows subsidies only for people who obtain coverage through state-run exchanges. The White House says the law can be read to allow subsidies for people who get coverage in federal exchanges as well.
The recently released results of a May poll that surveyed more than 220 hospital and health system administrators found that while 49% of respondents are more than halfway to completing full EHR implementation, 48% of those polled said they are only somewhat comfortable with the level of budgeting their organization planned for EHR deployment. Nine percent said they weren't comfortable at all with their budget plans, while 18% said they were unsure. On the positive side, 25% said they were very comfortable with the funding they had for their EHR implementation project.
The Supreme Court's decision to uphold most of President Barack Obama's healthcare law will come home to roost for most taxpayers in about 21/2 years, when they'll have to start providing proof on their tax returns that they have health insurance. That scenario puts the Internal Revenue Service at the center of the debate, renewing questions about whether the agency can police the healthcare decisions of millions of people in the United States while also collecting the taxes needed to run the federal government.
Last year, Georgia hospitals lost an estimated $1.5 billion caring for people without insurance. The promise of fewer uninsured is what led the national hospital industry to agree to the health law's $155 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts over a 10 year period. The Medicaid curveball comes at a time when Georgia hospitals are already in the throes of a massive industry transformation to improve quality and efficiency driven by market forces as well as the new law. Hospitals face lower payments from insurers and pressures to consolidate. One in three Georgia hospitals lose money.
Governor Nikki Haley, a Tea Party-backed Republican, was among the first state leaders to oppose expanding Medicaid after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government can't make states do so. Caught between poverty and pressure to curb government's power, South Carolina illustrates the forces at play in the nation's capitals amid the broadest changes to the health care system since 1965. In South Carolina, the law would add about 500,000 people to Medicaid, said Tony Keck, whom Haley appointed to head the Health and Human Services Department.