Marilyn Werber Serafini

FAQ: How Paul Ryan Proposes To Change Medicare

KFF Health News Original

The Republican-controlled House, along party lines, twice approved Ryan’s proposals to overhaul the popular program by giving beneficiaries a set amount of money every year to buy coverage from competing health plans. That is a fundamental shift from today’s program, where the federal government must help pay for every doctor visit and medical service that an individual uses.

Bill Frist To GOP Governors: Get Cracking On Exchanges

KFF Health News Original

A former GOP power player is urging Republicans to rethink their rejection of the health law and to implement state insurance exchanges – and to do it now. Bill Frist, a former Republican Senate majority leader and heart transplant surgeon, today argued in a column that state officials should not pass up the opportunity to build […]

CBO To Release New Budget Numbers for Health Law Week of July 23

KFF Health News Original

The Congressional Budget Office will release its estimate of the federal budgetary impact of the Supreme Court health law ruling the week of July 23, according to a blog post by CBO Director Doug Elmendorf. “Because such updated projections are the base against which CBO will estimate the budgetary effects of changes in the ACA, […]

Some Employers Waiting Until After Elections To Prepare For Health Law

KFF Health News Original

For one in six employers, the Supreme Court’s health law decision wasn’t enough to convince them to prepare for big changes set to take effect in 2014, according to Mercer, an employer consultant.  Mercer surveyed 4,000 employers after the court’s ruling, and found that 16 percent still intended to wait until after the November election to […]

How Many Will Remain Uninsured if States Don’t Expand Medicaid?

KFF Health News Original

Since the Supreme Court ruled that states won’t be required under the health law to expand Medicaid, Washington has been buzzing with estimates about the numbers of poor people who could be left uninsured. But the numbers so far have been inflated, because they included both those who would become eligible for the first time […]

‘Health Reform Bracketology’ Offers Roadmap To ACA’s Future

KFF Health News Original

When is the Supreme Court like the NCAA? When health care consultant Mike Leavitt works up an interactive PDF bracket to lay out many of the possible scenarios that could result from the upcoming Supreme Court decision on the health law, combined with the outcome of November elections. It comes with all the tension and […]

When Is A Joint Committee Disjointed?

KFF Health News Original

Over the past two weeks, 18 scathing messages hammering the Obama administration on health care matters have been e-mailed to reporters and congressional staff from an address associated with the congressional Joint Economic Committee – a panel of Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate. Isn’t the JEC a bipartisan, bicameral panel that alternates […]

Breaux: Bipartisanship Necessary To Fix Medicare Finances

KFF Health News Original

Louisiana Democrat John B. Breaux left the Senate seven years ago, but old habits die hard. Today he fell back easily into his former role of compromise builder as he stressed the need for political common ground to overhaul Medicare next year. After a House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing to delve into “premium support” models, Breaux held […]

An Even Bleaker Prognosis For Medicare?

KFF Health News Original

If readers can bear the first 276 pages of bad news in the annual Medicare trustees report,  released Monday, they will come to several pages in which Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster argues the program’s financial future is even bleaker than what the trustees suggest. Foster acknowledges the trustees did exactly the job they were asked […]