Policy and Legislation
The Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday nearly $200 million in new grant funds to help states make health insurance premiums more transparent and to give states the power to stop "unreasonable premium increases."
Some quick tidbits and news items concerning health care reform you hopefully find useful – or at least interesting.
The creation of consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs), health insurance policies with high deductibles linked to a savings option and with more financial responsibility shouldered by patients and employees and less by employers, was completely inevitable.
A potential change in the way the National Labor Relations Board determines how workers in non-acute care facilities unionize has the potential to raise costs and impact the quality of care at such facilities, says the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living.
There is a 50 percent likelihood of a complete government shutdown over the coming months, said former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich at Monday's opening keynote at the HIMSS11 conference in Orlando, Fla.
When the Joint Commission's new standards for hospital accreditation based on language access take full effect a year from now, many hospitals might not make the cut and could lose critical funding.
A report from Moody's Investors Services shows that changes in employee benefits plan designs as well as new medical management techniques such as employee wellness programs are playing a large role in reducing demand for healthcare services.
In a letter to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this week, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius informed Brewer that the state does not need an HHS waiver for its plans to remove more than 250,000 people from its Medicaid rolls.
Most of the recent attention on the 2010 health care reform legislation has focused on the individual mandate. After two federal court rulings upholding the mandate, a third federal judge—in Virginia—ruled that the Constitution does not allow the government to require the purchase of insurance as part of regulating an interstate commerce market.
Twenty people, including three doctors, have been charged in Florida for their part in a $200 million fraudulent Medicare billing scheme, the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services have announced.