First Edition: March 25, 2015
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Even In Female-Dominated Nursing, Men Earn More
Women outnumber men in the nursing profession by more than 10 to 1. But men still earn more, a new study finds. The report in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association found that even after controlling for age, race, marital status and children in the home, males in nursing out-earned females by nearly $7,700 per year in outpatient settings and nearly $3,900 in hospitals.(Rovner, 3/24)
The Associated Press:
GOP Moves Ahead On Budget Plans; Eyes Obamacare Repeal Bill
House and Senate Republicans steamed ahead Tuesday toward likely approval of balanced budget outlines, essential early steps along a path to send President Barack Obama legislation to wipe out his five-year-old health care law and eliminate deficits within a decade. Obama is all but certain to veto the follow-up legislation if and when it reaches his desk later this year, but Republican rebels and establishment-minded conservatives alike in the House paid that little mind. (Espo, 3/24)
Los Angeles Times:
A Make-Or-Break Week Awaits Republican Leaders In Congress
After stumbling several times since taking control of Congress earlier this year, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have an opportunity to demonstrate on two important fronts that Republicans can effectively govern. But it remains unclear if they will be able to deliver. Boehner acknowledged Tuesday the momentous days ahead, as Republicans will try to pass their annual budget for fiscal 2016 and approve a sweeping bipartisan accord to overhaul the way doctors are paid under Medicare. (Mascaro, 3/24)
The New York Times:
Bipartisan Deal On Health Care Issues Hits A Snag Among Senate Democrats
The deal is as politically remarkable as it is substantive: a long-term plan to finance health care for older Americans, pay doctors who accept Medicare and extend popular health care programs for children and the poor. It was cobbled together by none other than House Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the leader of House Democrats, who rarely agree on anything, with the apparent blessing of a majority of their respective members. (Steinhauer and Pear, 3/24)
The Associated Press:
Highlights Of Bipartisan House Plan On Medicare Doctor Fees
Highlights of the compromise released Tuesday by House Republican and Democratic leaders to permanently avoid yearly cuts in reimbursements for physicians treating Medicare patients. Cost figures were not released but are based on interviews with lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional staff. (3/24)
The Associated Press:
Uncertainty About Doctors' Pay Has Taken Toll On Medicare
New momentum for a lasting fix to Medicare's doctor-payment problem shows that lawmakers may finally be recognizing what has long bothered their constituents. Year after year, the threat of 20 percent payment cuts averted at the last minute has seemed a curious way to run a program that lives depend on. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/25)
The Washington Post:
Obama To Tout Health Care Law On Fifth Anniversary
President Obama will tout the Affordable Care Act on its fifth anniversary Wednesday as he continues his bid to frame the health care law as a success in the face of legal and political challenges. Obama is set to make remarks at an event with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, where they will announce the creation of a network of public and private partners tasked with ensuring that the health care law improves services for medical patients. (Nakamura, 3/25)
USA Today's The Oval:
Obama's Day: Health Care, Five Years Later
President Obama spends Wednesday touting one of his legacies: The health care law he signed five years ago. In a speech at the White House, Obama will unveil what he calls the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network. This group of public and private groups will look for ways to reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary treatments, tests, and hospital visits. More than 2,800 health care providers and consumer groups have agreed to participate, the White House says. (Jackson, 3/25)
The Associated Press:
Obama: Base Health Care Payments On Quality, Not Quantity
President Barack Obama wants to cut health care costs by reducing unnecessary treatments, tests and hospital visits that rack up big bills. Obama on Wednesday will launch what the White House calls a Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network. The White House says more than 2,800 health care providers, patients and consumer groups have agreed to take part. (3/25)
USA Today:
Affordable Care Act Hasn't Overwhelmed Doctors, Study Says
Predictions that doctors would be overwhelmed by new patients as a result of the Affordable Care Act have not come true a year after the law's coverage expansions took effect. That's according to a study to be released Wednesday from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and health care technology company Athenahealth. By gathering data from 15,700 of Athenahealth's clients, mainly physicians, the study measured how the Affordable Care Act has affected doctors. (Hinchliffe, 3/24)
The Wall Street Journal:
Health Overhaul Leads To Shorter Work Hours
The Affordable Care Act, signed by President Obama five years ago this week, sparked a host of changes. For some workers, the law’s legacy amounts to fewer hours of paid work. The law’s requirement that larger employers provide affordable insurance to workers putting in 30-plus hour weeks has led some companies to cap the number of hours employees can log. A new survey out Tuesday from the Society for Human Resource Management finds that 14% of employers have cut back on hours for part-time employees, and an additional 6% plan to do so. The survey, which included more than 740 human resources professionals, found that a small subset of companies were considering reducing hours for full-time employees too. (Feintzeig, 3/25)
NPR/Center For Public Integrity:
Feds Claim Obamacare Launch Is Hindering Government Transparency
A heavy workload caused by the Affordable Care Act, government technology limits and staff shortages are causing unusually long delays in filling public records requests, federal health officials say. The waits in some cases could stretch out a decade or more. The Freedom of Information Act requires federal agencies to respond to records requests in 20 working days, though providing documents often takes much longer. The FBI, for instance, recently reported that complex requests could average more than two years to fill. (Schulte, 3/24)
NPR:
Despite High Rates Of Nursing Injuries, Government Regulators Take Little Action
Just about everybody who has studied the hospital industry agrees that it needs to confront the epidemic that plagues many of its staff: Tens of thousands of nursing employees suffer debilitating injuries every year, mainly from doing part of their everyday jobs — moving and lifting patients. The problem is, nobody agrees how to get hospitals to take aggressive action. As NPR has been reporting in its Injured Nurses series, nursing employees suffer more back and arm injuries than just about any other occupations. (Zwerdling, 3/24)
The Washington Post's Wonkblog:
How Ted Cruz Could Wind Up On Obamacare
So, irony of all ironies — Sen. Ted Cruz could now be joining Obamacare. Cruz said Tuesday he may sign up for the health insurance program he's promised to repeal "every word of" because he's no longer on his wife's plan. His wife, Heidi, is taking a leave of absence from Goldman Sachs during her husband's newly unveiled presidential campaign, meaning the Cruzes will need to find health insurance elsewhere. (Millman, 3/24)
The Associated Press:
Cruz Eyes Insurance Via Obamacare, A Law He Vows To Scrap
The first-term senator from Texas said he is looking at options available on a health insurance exchange, or a clearinghouse of policies available to Americans who don't receive coverage through their employers. ... Under an amendment to the law crafted by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the government can only offer members of Congress and their staff health care insurance that's sold through an exchange. (3/24)
The New York Times:
Cruz, Critic Of Health Care Law, Now Seeks To Sign Up
Senator Ted Cruz helped lead an effort to shut down the government in 2013 in an attempt to defund President Obama’s health care law. Now the Texas senator, a newly announced Republican presidential candidate, is signing up for coverage under it. ... So Mr. Cruz is now turning to the very thing he has spent more than two years vowing to repeal. (Haberman, 3/24)
USA Today:
Ted Cruz To Get Health Care Plan Through Obamacare Exchange
“We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care, and we’re in the process of transitioning over to do that,” Cruz, a Republican candidate for president, told The Des Moines Register Tuesday. (Jacobs, 3/24)
The Wall Street Journal:
Ohio Governor John Kasich Weighs Jumping Into 2016 Fray
Mr. Kasich is known as a social conservative and fiscal hawk. He has been traveling the country to urge state legislatures to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, and in his first term he promoted an effort to limit the bargaining powers of public-sector unions, which failed. Those stances put him in step with the party base. But his record also has policy land mines that could blow up in a Republican primary. Mr. Kasich engineered the expansion of Medicaid in Ohio under the 2010 health-care law; he has supported the national education standards known as Common Core; and he has said he is willing to consider offering a pathway to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally. (Hook, 3/24)
The Washington Post's Fact Checker:
Here’s Why Lawmakers Should Not Speak Without Notes
First of all, let’s start with the numbers that [Rep. Pete] Sessions cited on the floor. He claimed that the cost of insuring 12 million people would be $108 billion. Then he did some “simple multiplication” and came up with a figure of $5 million per newly insured person. Actually, if you divide $108 billion by 12 million, you end up with $9,000 a person. That’s a pretty big difference. We might understand why $5 million would be “immoral” or “unconscionable,” as Sessions thundered in his speech, but it turns out to be less than 1/500th of that amount. (Kessler, 3/25)
The Wall Street Journal:
Auto Workers’ Medical Benefits At Risk Under New Tax
Detroit’s negotiations this summer to reach a new four-year labor deal won’t just be an argument about wages. Generous health-care benefits for about 135,000 unionized factory workers are at risk of being cut to prepare for the Affordable Care Act’s “Cadillac” tax. Health care has long been a fiercely protected benefit for United Auto Worker members, remaining generous even as the union has made other concessions. But the so-called Cadillac tax on companies with high-cost health plans is scheduled to take effect in 2018. (Rogers, 3/24)
The Wall Street Journal:
High Court Gives Omnicare Another Shot At Stopping Investor Suit
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday a lower court made it too easy for investors to proceed with a lawsuit alleging Omnicare Inc. misled investors in details for a plan to sell new shares. ... Shareholders brought the case in 2006, alleging Omnicare, the nation’s largest provider of pharmaceutical services in nursing homes, deceived the investing public about its relationships with drug companies. Rebate programs in which Omnicare received discounts from drug makers were really illegal kickback arrangements in which drug companies paid Omnicare to promote their products in long-term care facilities, investors alleged. (Kendall, 3/24)
The Washington Post:
VA To Change 40-Mile Rule For Veterans Choice Program
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday announced plans to relax the agency’s rule on how far patients must live from the nearest VA medical center before the government pays for treatment at a closer private facility. Under the original guidelines, veterans had to reside at least 40 miles in a straight shot, or as the crow flies, from the nearest VA clinic. The new guideline will instead measure the distance in driving miles, as calculated by commercial mapping services such as Google Maps and Mapquest. (Hicks, 3/24)
The Wall Street Journal:
VA Makes It Easier For Veterans To Get Care Outside System
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday changed its interpretation of a law after months of criticism from Congress and veterans groups, making it easier for veterans to get health care outside of the VA system. Under a federal law passed in 2014 known as the Veterans Choice Act, veterans forced to wait longer than 30 days for an appointment, or who have to travel more than 40 miles to a VA facility, are eligible to get appointments outside of the VA system. (Kesling, 3/24)
The Associated Press:
VA Says It Will Relax 40-Mile Rule For Private Medical Care
The VA said it will now measure the 40-mile trip by driving miles as calculated by Google maps or other sites, rather than as the crow flies, as currently interpreted. The rule change is expected to roughly double the number of veterans eligible for the VA’s new “Choice Card” program. The change could add billions of dollars in annual costs as tens of thousands of new veterans receive private medical care, which typically costs more than traditional care at VA hospitals and clinics. (Daly, 3/24)
Los Angeles Times:
Blue Shield Spends $1.25 Billion On Care1st Deal, Records Show
Nonprofit insurer Blue Shield of California is spending $1.25 billion on its acquisition of Monterey Park health plan Care1st, records show. Blue Shield had refused to disclose the purchase price when it announced the deal in December and then sought confidentiality from state regulators in late January. The California Department of Managed Health Care turned over Blue Shield's filings late Monday in response to a public-records request from The Times. (Terhune, 3/24)
USA Today:
Amid Crisis, States Expand Access To Opioid Rescue Drug
With drug overdoses skyrocketing across the USA, a growing number of states are expanding access to a fast-acting rescue drug called naloxone, which can revive a dying addict in minutes. But while these new laws have broad support in the public health community, some doctors and drug-treatment professionals say they are just Band-Aids for an overwhelming addiction problem requiring a much broader solution. (Ungar, 3/24)