Policy and Legislation
Trump's plan would allow health insurers to remove costlier benefits in exchange for less expensive premiums.
The measure preserving the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, known as SHIP, is part of a massive spending bill for federal health, education and labor programs, approved by the Republican majority of the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees those departments.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed changes to how it pays doctors and other providers for primary care with a new focus on care management and behavioral health.
CMS is now calling for clinicians, hospitals, and critical access hospitals to use a 90-day EHR reporting period in 2016 - down from a full calendar year for returning participants in the government's EHR Incentive Program. They also proposed lowering the bar for achieving Stage 3 objectives, eliminating the Clinical Decision Support and Computerized Provider Order Entry objectives and measures for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals.
Proposal would eliminate any potential financial pressure clinicians may feel to over-prescribe pain medications, especially opioids.
HHS said consumers could buy fixed indemnity insurance thinking they were getting comprehensive coverage.
American Hospital Association-backed report says ignoring socioeconomic differences may create the appearance of quality issues where there are none.
CMS said the initiative is part of a broader effort to improve care and spend money more wisely by making use of available data.
Obama administration is making a push to get young adults covered on the health insurance marketplaces, both for their own good and that of the marketplaces, which need healthy people to balance sicker ones in the risk pool.
In a recently released issue paper and in a study in the journal Health Affairs last year, the Urban researchers modeled the spending impact of two programs that each paid a $100 daily benefit, with a 3 percent annual inflation adjustment.