Policy and Legislation
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will have little net effect on overall employment but should provide a modest boost in healthcare sector employment, according to the Urban Institute.
Less than a week after Blue Shield of California shelved its planned increases for individual members, Anthem Blue Cross has decided to decrease its planned rate hike and withhold increases in co-payments and deductibles for more than 600,000 members enrolled in its family plans.
The Department of Health and Human Services has reported that nearly 48,000 Medicare enrollees have saved $38 million this year - an average of $800 per person - under a 50 percent discount created by the Affordable Care Act.
Chief among Sarah Palin’s assaults on truth and reason is her contention that providing reimbursement for end-of-life planning sessions with a health care provider is tantamount to a “death panel” where a “bureaucrat can decide based on a subjective judgment of [a person's] ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
Connolly Healthcare has posted a new approved issue calling for DRG Validation review of 309 MS-DRGs and/or 141 ICD-9 diagnosis codes.
Small business owners in California said they would be more likely to offer health insurance after learning about tax credits available under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new poll by Pacific Community Ventures.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a non-profit group focusing on Constitutional law, said it's encouraged by a district court decision that could help to catapult its case opposing the Affordable Care Act to the Supreme Court.
Two Pennsylvania Congressmen - from opposite sides of the aisle - have filed a bill seeking to eliminate a competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment that has frustrated providers and consumers.
Legislation to exempt broker commissions from the medical loss ratio provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is gaining bipartisan steam.
Two months after announcing its intention to raise rates for 200,000 individual plan members - with some planned increases as high as 59 percent - California Blue Shield is withdrawing its rate filing with the California Department of Insurance and instead will hold both individual and family plan rates steady for the remainder of the year.