Policy and Legislation

If the Supreme Court follows its usual schedule, by the end of today nine people will know the fate of the Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate. It will likely be nearly three months before the rest of us know how the Justices voted today.

Before Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) got to Washington, D.C., she made a name for herself as a state legislator who co-sponsored legislation that later became the footprint for the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

On the third and final day of the healthcare law hearings at the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, the major question the battling attorneys took up was whether Congress would have enacted the health reform law without the part that may be found to be unconstitutional.

In a recent 4-0 vote, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) made the decision to uphold Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell's December order for Toledo, Ohio-based Promedica to divest St. Luke's Hospital in Maumee, Ohio.

Before her election last fall to head the Medical Group Management Association, Susan Turney was recognized as a champion for healthcare information technology.

Day two of hearings at the Supreme Court yesterday found the justices pressing the federal government's case by searching for analogies in a host of other industries -- ranging from burial services and telecommunications to food and emergency services -- in order to better understand the nature of the individual mandate.

With Medicare spending an estimated $12 billion on avoidable readmissions, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, two new programs are being introduced to help curb these costly, unneeded expenditures while improving patients’ quality of care.

The Supreme Court dove into the heart of the health reform law and its most controversial aspect, the individual mandate, during day two of hearings on the law.

With the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, new analysis from the Urban Institute shows that the requirement for all people to have health insurance or face a fine, would not affect 94 percent of the population.

Barbara McNeil, MD, has spent a lifetime researching quality of care issues. Her work led the Department of Veterans Affairs to change how care is provided to veterans.