Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) postponed the House’s legislative agenda this week, including the vote on repeal of the Affordable Care Act, after Saturday’s Arizona shooting, which left six dead and 14 injured. Among those injured was Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who remains in critical condition.
Republicans expect to pass the legislation easily in the House but privately acknowledge that the measure faces an uphill battle in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The White House is dismissing GOP plans to try to repeal the health care law as merely "symbolic" and "a bit of huff and puff." On Thursday (1/6), President Obama threatened to veto House Republicans' attempt to repeal his landmark law. In a statement released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the administration cautioned that repeal "would explode the deficit, raise costs for the American people and businesses, deny an estimated 32 million people health insurance, and take us back to the days when insurers could deny, limit or drop coverage for any American."
Though the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions – like the mandate that almost everyone purchase insurance and the requirement that states set up insurance exchanges – do not take effect until 2014, The Kaiser Family Foundation counts 21 other provisions that take effect in 2011. Among these provisions are a requirement that the proportion of premium dollars spent on medical care amounts to at least 80 percent for small business plans and 85 percent for large group plans; a requirement that drug makers provide a 50 percent discount on brand-name medications that fall into the “doughnut hole”; an elimination of cost-sharing for Medicare beneficiaries for certain preventive health services; and a requirement that consumers have prescriptions for over the counter drugs if they want to use flexible spending accounts to pay. The full Kaiser Family Foundation list can be found here: http://healthreform.kff.org/timeline.aspx.
Newly elected governors and attorneys general are maintaining the momentum gathered last year in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Ohio's newly elected attorney general said Monday that he plans to join the 20 other states mounting a legal challenge to the healthcare legislation. Michigan’s new Attorney General, Bill Schuette (R), said that he will continue the state’s role in the legal challenge. Wisconsin's new Republican governor Scott Walker used his first day in office Monday to authorize the state's attorney general to file suit. Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming said Friday (1/7) that the state will request permission to join the lawsuit. The states currently involved in the Florida lawsuit are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington.
On Friday (1/7), Attorney General-elect Scott Pruitt said Oklahoma will file its own lawsuit seeking to overturn the law. Pruitt will argue, as others have, that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to pass the law.
A week into the new congressional session, Democrats and Republicans are fine-tuning their messages on the healthcare reform law. Democrats have assembled an offense portraying the repeal effort as a waste of time and as dangerous to Americans. Republicans argue they were voted into office with a mandate to repeal the reform law, which they have branded a “job-killer.”
The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday (1/6) that repeal of the Affordable Care Act would add $230 billion to federal budget deficit over the next decade. New House speaker, John Boehner, flatly rejected the report, saying it was based largely on Democrat deception. House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor argued that the healthcare law was actually discouraging employers from hiring new employees, and could even be driving further unemployment.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): (1) improved its Physician Directory tool by launching the first phase of its Physician Compare website, which will provide consumers with information about physicians; (2) proposed regulations that would establish in 2013 a new hospital value-based purchasing program for Medicare that would reward hospitals for providing high quality, safe care for patients; (3) announced it will create a new office to help coordinate care for dual-eligibles, those enrolled in both the Medicare and Medicaid programs; and (4) began implementing a new program that will make drastic changes to how Medicare beneficiaries receive their medical equipment. Currently, Medicare beneficiaries and referral sources are free to choose a medical equipment supplier. The new program, called "competitive bidding," will reduce and limit the number of medical equipment companies that can provide equipment to traditional Medicare beneficiaries.
Though Congress approved a zero percent update for Medicare physician fees in 2011, the CMS calculation for the 2011 conversion factor represents a 7.8554 percent cut, according to a report by the Idaho Medical Association. The revised conversion factor, effective January 1, 2011, is $33.9764, compared with the FY 2010 conversion factor of $36.8729. CMS has directed implementation for "no later than" January 14, 2011.
The Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (OCIIO), created by the Affordable Care Act, will be moved from HHS to CMS. The OCIIO was created to help HHS implement the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that address private health insurance to ensure the law best meets the needs of all Americans. Among other things, the office is responsible for ensuring compliance with the new insurance market rules, overseeing the new medical loss ratio rules, and assisting states in reviewing insurance rates. Though the OCIIO is being moved, it will continue to carry out its original tasks. The current director of the OCIIO, Jay Angoff, will become a senior adviser to Secretary Sebelius.
On January 2, President Obama signed a bill that makes provision for federal health coverage for first responders to the 9/11 terrorist attacks who became sick. The bill passed after Senate Democrats struck a deal with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) who agreed to drop his objections when the cost of the bill was reduced by about $2 billion to $4.2 billion.