Policy and Legislation
Large pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has agreed to pay $3 billion in order to resolve charges of engaging in illegal schemes related to unlawful marketing and pricing of some of the drugs it manufactures in what has become the largest healthcare fraud scheme in the country's history.
As part of the ACA, the Supreme Court upheld a new tax provision intended to help fund healthcare reform -- a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device sales beginning Jan. 1, 2013.
Healthcare organizations that were previously sitting along the sidelines when it came to healthcare reform are going to have to get the ball rolling now that the Supreme Court has made the ruling to uphold the 2010 healthcare law, according to a report published Friday by the PwC Health Research Institute (HRI).
Last week's Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act provided a setback to the Obama Administration by ruling that while the federal government can expand the Medicaid program, it cannot withhold funds from states that choose not to participate in the expansion.
The National Quality Forum voted to uphold its decision to endorse an all-cause hospital-wide readmissions measure, which had been challenged by seven hospitals.
How do officials in the public health sector feel about the final 5-4 decision? For the most part, positively -- though many officials emphasize it's just the first step on a long road to reform.
Government Health IT Editor Tom Sullivan spoke with Bill Bernstein, chairman of the healthcare division at law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, which works with states and providers on health IT and related public policy issues, on the implication of the Supreme Court's ACA ruling and how it affects how the law will ultimately play out, health IT projects, and the impact it could have on Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, who has been stumping on ACA repeal.
In a stunning blow to opponents of the Affordable Care Act, the United States Supreme Court today ruled in a 5 to 4 vote that the most reviled portion of the health reform law -- the so-called individual mandate requiring all Americans to buy health insurance or face a fine -- is constitutional, since it falls within the power of Congress to impose a tax.
The Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate survives as a tax under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) -- the state's Medicaid agency -- has agreed to pay $1.7 million to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to settle possible violations of the HIPAA Security Rule, making it the second largest settlement for HIPAA violations to date.