Tom Sullivan

Banking on repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (R) on Tuesday unveiled a plan targeting four major areas of reform -- second on the list is healthcare.

Health IT's hallowed bipartisan support ostensibly survived the presidential election and, subsequently, the fiscal cliff debate – but as the budgetary battles trudge on in Washington that fate is not so guaranteed as it once seemed.

During the Thursday morning keynote at HIMSS13, the national coordinator for health IT, Farzad Mostashari, MD focused on the nation's broken healthcare system, while delving into a range of topics.

Healthcare was by far the feistiest part of Thursday's HIMSS13 closing session featuring Karl Rove and James Carville.

Tom Sullivan, editor of Healthcare Finance News' sister publication Government Health IT spoke with national health IT coordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD, about sequestration and the sustainability of Regional Extension Centers and more a day before his keynote at HIMSS13.

Call it a post-reelection prediction: On the day after President Barack Obama secured a second term at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, an attorney for a prominent healthcare law firm suggested that even Republican governors would succumb to the lure of expanding Medicaid on the federal dime.

When Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address that "the biggest obstacles to balancing the budget are programs where spending is already locked in," he pulled no punches and pointed directly at Medicare.

It should be no surprise that President Barack Obama launched into the intertwined matters of sequestration and deficit reduction -- with a focus on how they impact healthcare -- before addressing other sectors of the U.S. economy during his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

HHS issued modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules late Thursday. The four-part final rule is designed to enhance patients' privacy rights and increase HHS' ability to enforce security protections.

Despite President Barack Obama's victory over Republican challenger Mitt Romney, a significant amount of work must be accomplished in the next four years to ensure that the next president cannot uproot the ACA via "repeal and replace."