Policy and Legislation
Bobbie Kite, a doctoral student at the University of Texas School of Public Health, sketches out a breakdown of hospital chargemaster lists, thier role the current U.S. healthcare model, and implications of the ACA.
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, vital sexual health services for men and women are now covered by insurance plans at no extra cost. The law also ends annual and lifetime dollar limits on such care.
As health insurance exchange enrollment begins today, the stakes are high for states with large uninsured populations that are declining to expand Medicaid. That political decision could be the difference between the status quo and improvements in healthcare access and sustainability.
For better or worse, war has provided the impetus for new medical technology. The latest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sent home many men and some women who suffered the loss of legs and arms.
As Congress has failed to pass legislation to continue funding the federal government, the Department of Health and Human Services has furloughed more than half of its employees. Medicare and Medicaid funding will survive, at least in the short term.
Much public discussion about the Affordable Care Act has focused on the health insurance exchanges. But a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to support the exchanges, including the creation of thousands of new jobs.
Medicare officials will delay until 2014 enforcement of controversial new rules that define when hospital patients should receive observation care, rather than being admitted, a distinction that makes beneficiaries ineligible for follow-up nursing home coverage.
It looks to me like consumers will have a choice when they get to look at the health plans available on the new "Obamacare" health insurance exchanges - - rate shock or benefit shock.
A federal court judge dismissed a lawsuit Monday intended to eliminate the observation classification, or require hospitals to tell patients when they are under observation and then create a clear appeals process to challenge Medicare’s coverage decisions.
Lawyers for a radiology practice are asking a federal appeals court in Richmond to let them challenge Virginia's certificate of need law, after a district court dismissed a lawsuit brought against the Virginia Department of Health.