Tag: Kaiser Family Foundation

Modest health goals for new US Congress

Volume 400, Issue 10369
17 December 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT  With Congress almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, consensus on any major health legislation is unlikely.  Susan Jaffe reports. 

When a new US Congress convenes in January, 2023, the slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the Democrats’ even smaller margin in the Senate will not enable either party to make major changes in the health-care system. With President Joe Biden promising to use his veto power to defend his health-care agenda, no significant fixes are expected. But there appears to be bipartisan support for some less ambitious legislation on issues that will overcome congressional gridlock.[Continued here.]…

US Congress lets Medicare negotiate lower drug prices

Volume 400, Issue 10352
20 August 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT  A new law also targets climate change in a major victory for Democrats and President Joe Biden. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

Shattering decades of opposition from the pharmaceutical industry and its allies, slim Democratic majorities in the US House of Representatives and Senate have passed landmark legislation to begin to control runaway drug prices for almost 50 million older Americans with Medicare’s pharmaceutical benefit. The bill also provides the largest federal investment in US history—US$370 billion—to slash greenhouse gases by 40% below 2005 emissions and respond to the devastating effects of climate change…. The legislation also ensures that no Medicare beneficiary pays more than $2000 a year for drugs. “That means you will have more money in your pocket”, said Tatiana Fassieux, education and training specialist at California Health Advocates. [Continued here.]
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Biden unwinds Trump health-care policies

Volume 397, Issue 10272
30 January 2021

 

WORLD REPORT A Democrat in the White House and a Democratic Congress could bring big changes to US health policy, but challenges remain. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC. 

…Before the Biden Administration can tackle other health priorities, the first order of business is the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 420 000 Americans—a death toll higher than that of any other nation—and has exposed health-care inequities and crippled the economy. …Although Biden will have a lot of support for his health-care agenda, “that doesn’t mean that it’s smooth sailing”, said Lanhee Chen, a public policy fellow at the Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “I think there are still a lot of people who are very upset about the outcome of the election.” [Full story here.]…

Nursing Homes Fined for COVID Infection Control Lapses

By Susan Jaffe  | Contributing Writer | MedPageToday  | November 25, 2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has fined 218 nursing homes more than $17.6 million for the most serious infection control violations that put residents in “immediate jeopardy,” conditions CMS believes are likely to seriously injure or kill them.

More than 91,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have died after contracting COVID-19 — about 40% of the total deaths in the U.S., according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. …Frustrated by repeated violations of infection control requirements during the pandemic, CMS raised the penalty amounts and announced a crackdown on egregious offenders in August. But the hard-line approach doesn’t seem to have produced the intended results. (Click here for a list of nursing homes that were fined.)  [Continued here.]

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US election 2020: the future of the Affordable Care Act

Volume 396, Number 10260     31 October 2020 

WORLD REPORT   President Donald Trump pledges to replace the Affordable Care Act while his Democratic opponent Joe Biden offers detailed proposals to improve it. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

Since winning the presidency in 2016 in large part by promising to eliminate Obamacare, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Donald Trump has promised more than a dozen times that his replacement plan would be ready soon. The plan would be released in 2 weeks, a White House spokeswoman said 2 months ago.

“We’re going to have a health-care plan that will be second to none”, Trump said in 2017. “It’s going to be great and the people will see that.” And at last week’s final presidential debate, he vowed “to terminate Obamacare, [and] come up with a brand new beautiful health care”.

A decade after the ACA—President Barack Obama’s signature achievement—became law, repealing and replacing Obamacare is again central to Trump’s re-election. And improving and expanding the law is a crucial part of the campaign of his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden. [Continued here.]     

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US Planned Parenthood leadership shake-up

  Volume 394       Number 10195       27 July 2019   
WORLD REPORT Planned Parenthood’s board of directors decided to remove Dr. Leana Wen her after only 8 months, igniting a public debate about how the prominent women’s health-care organisation should best protect a woman’s right to abortion.[Continued here] 
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US Congress wants to take the surprise out of medical bills

Volume 393       Number 10191       29 June 2019   
WORLD REPORT A Texas high school teacher gets an unexpected hospital bill for $110,000 that his health insurance policy doesn’t cover. What can Congress do about it?   [Continued here]
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USA sets goal to end the HIV epidemic in a decade

Volume 393, Number 10172   

16 February 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   The unexpected announcement in the State of the Union address could set the start of a realistic agenda to end HIV/AIDS in the USA, provided funds are secured. Susan Jaffe reports.

Nearly an hour into his 90 min State of the Union address, President Donald Trump called for a government-run health-care programme “to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years”.

Although the president has promised to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) along with its health insurance marketplaces and Medicaid expansion, these and other policies did not appear to dampen his enthusiasm. [Continued here.]…

State exemptions to the Affordable Care Act expanded

Volume 392, Number 10164 

15 December 2018

 

WORLD REPORT   In its latest blow to the ACA, the Trump administration provides guidance on how states can circumvent the health law. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet‘s Washington correspondent, reports.

In its most far-reaching move yet, the Trump administration has reinterpreted a provision of the landmark Affordable Care Act so that states can apply for exemptions to some requirements of the health law for states. [Continued here.]
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CDC faces leadership changes, potential spending cuts

Volume 391, Number 10121   
17 February 2018

 

WORLD REPORT   The CDC has indicated it will reduce its foreign presence, and proposed budget cuts make some fear its core functions are threatened. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

“We don’t know what the next outbreak organism will be; we don’t know where it will come from, or when it will emerge”, [former CDC director Dr. Tom] Frieden said. “But we are 100% certain there will be a next one and if we are not better prepared than we were during Ebola, shame on us.”  [Full article here.]

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Changes in the US tax system will also affect health care

Volume 391, Number 10117   
20 January 2018

 

WORLD REPORT    The tax overhaul pushed by Republicans could jeopardise the ACA’s health insurance marketplaces. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.   

…The new tax law contains a provision aimed at an… administration target, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Next year, it eliminates the ACA’s tax penalty for Americans who disregard the requirement to have health insurance, one of the law’s most unpopular features. Even though the ACA’s health insurance mandate is still quite intact, Trump and others claim there is effectively no mandate without a penalty.
“When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed”, Trump said shortly before signing the tax bill into law last month. “And we’ll come up with something that will be much better, whether it’s block grants or whether it’s taking what we have and doing something terrific.”  [full story here]

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Science appointments in the USA

  Volume 389, Number  10088
    24 June 2017

WORLD REPORT    Slow appointments and vacant positions in federal agencies challenge the stability of research in the USA.   Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.  

     As President Donald Trump rolls out his domestic agenda, his proposed budget cuts and lingering vacancies in key federal agencies have rattled some people in the biomedical research and science community.
     “This has been the most anxious time in science that I have seen in this country”, said Rush Holt, chief operating officer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which represents 250 scientific societies and academies serving 10 million members. Holt cited a litany of reasons: “fake news” that distorts science, “policy making based on wishful thinking rather than evidence, funding proposals that are nonsensical, and unfilled positions in government agencies”.  [Continued here]  

 

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Seeking Dental Care For Older Americans

Since Medicare doesn’t cover most dental care, seniors often go without treatment.

By SUSAN JAFFE  | Health Affairs | December 2016 | Volume 35, Number 12

The last time Evelyn Sell went to the dentist was nearly three years ago, when he told her his staff would no longer be able to lift her out of her wheelchair and into the dentist’s chair. “That really threw me for a loop,” said Sell, 87, a retired preschool teacher who lives in Kingsley Manor, a retirement community in Los Angeles. “I didn’t know what I was going to do about dental care.”

Care at home: During a recent visit to Kingsley Manor, a Los Angeles, California, senior living community, dental hygienist Maria Ladd uses an intraoral camera to take photos of resident Ruth Wilson’s teeth. (Photo: Susanna Castillo)

…Then earlier this year, she found the solution. A flyer in her mail informed her that the management of her assisted living facility had partnered with the Virtual Dental Home project run by Pacific Center for Special Care at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco. Sell could have a dental hygienist come to her home. She was one of the first residents to sign up.

The project is one of several innovative demonstrations that providers and researchers are developing to serve vulnerable uninsured or underinsured patients. Despite their promise, however, these efforts meet only a fraction of the need. A comprehensive solution would likely require federal legislation, but bills to broadly expand Medicare’s dental coverage have languished in Congress. So some advocates for older adults are working on a third front, seeking changes to Medicare coverage policy based on the idea that dental care can be an integral part of the medically necessary care Medicare covers. [Continued here] …

US global health leadership hangs on election result

lancet cover 2Volume 388, Number  10055 

22  October 2016 

WORLD REPORT   On most issues, the US presidential candidates have polar opposite views; engagement in global health is no different.  Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

Americans will choose their next president in less than 3 weeks and yet some global health experts still wonder what would happen to the international health programmes that the USA has championed in recent decades if the Republican contender, Donald Trump, is elected. The uncertainty comes despite the Ebola virus and Zika virus threats that made global health front-page news.  [Continued here] …

Decline of Medicare subsidized drug plans leaves seniors with less choice

By Susan Jaffe, Kaiser Health News | November 21, 2015 | and also published in USA Today logo 2012
Even though health problems forced Denise Scott to retire several years ago, she feels “very blessed” because her medicine is still relatively inexpensive and a subsidy for low-income Medicare beneficiaries covers the full cost of her monthly drug plan premiums. But the subsidy is not going to stretch as far next year.

Denise-Scott-04

That’s because the premium for Scott’s current plan will cost more than her federal subsidy. The 64-year-old from Cleveland is among  the 2 million older or disabled Americans who will have to find new coverage that accepts the subsidy as full premium payment or else pay for the shortfall. As beneficiaries explore options during the current Medicare enrollment period, there are only 227 such plans from which they can choose next year, 20% fewer than this year, and the lowest number since the drug benefit was added to Medicare in 2006, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. [Continued in USA Today, Kaiser Health News and PBS NewsHour]
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Medicare Advantage Plans Need Tougher Oversight, GAO Says

By: | Connecticut Health Investigative Team Writer | October 5, 2015
Federal investigators have found that Medicare officials rarely enforce rules for private insurance plans intended to make sure beneficiaries will be able to see a doctor when they need care.
It’s a problem many Connecticut seniors know too well. In 2013, UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurance company, dropped hundreds of health care providers from its C-HITConnecticut Medicare Advantage plan, including 1,200 doctors at the Yale Medical Group and Yale-New Haven Hospital. Medicare Advantage beneficiaries scrambled to find new insurance or new doctors while the Fairfield and Hartford counties medical associations went to court to try to stop the terminations.
The report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said that Medicare did not check provider networks to ensure that doctors were available to beneficiaries and cited Connecticut as a “case study” in what can go wrong.
The GAO report shows that Medicare “was not verifying network adequacy. That’s their job and they abdicated that responsibility,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven, who requested the investigation along with other members of the Connecticut congressional delegation. MORE
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50 Years of Medicare

lancet cover 2Volume 386, Issue 9992,  1 August 2015

WORLD REPORT    In July, 1965, Medicare, America’s landmark national health insurance programme, became law. Today, it covers 55 million people.  Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent,  reports.

LBJ Lancet 073015

An American woman thanks President Lyndon Johnson for Medicare, April, 1965.

Richard Troeh joined a very busy solo family medicine practice in 1966 but even with two doctors, their offi ce in Independence, Missouri, seemed just as hectic. The year before, President Lyndon Baines Johnson came to town to sign the Medicare legislation into law at the Truman library. Former President Harry Truman—an advocate of national health insurance since the 1940s—and his wife attended the event and were among the fi rst Americans to receive Medicare cards.
50 years later, the Social Security Amendments of 1965 provide health care for 55 million people older than 65 years or disabled receiving Medicare and nearly 73 million low-income adults, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities receiving Medicaid, an optional programme also created under the same law.
And in the process, the government programmes have transformed health care in the USA. Medicare is the nation’s largest single purchaser of health care, consuming 14% of last year’s federal budget, or US$505 billion. And it also has a fiercely loyal following that opposes efforts to cut benefits. Speaking earlier this month at the White House Conference on Aging, President Barack Obama drew laughs when he said, “And now we’ve got [protest] signs saying, “Get your government hands off of my Medicare”. [Continued in full text or PDF ] [listen to podcast here]
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NIH budget shrinks despite Ebola emergency funds

image Volume 385, Issue 9966, 31 January 2015

WORLD REPORT Even with a boost in funding for Ebola research, the US National Institutes of Health’s fiscal year 2015 budget is the lowest in years. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

During last year’s contentious congressional hearings investigating the US response to Ebola, the Obama Administration’s top health officials fended off criticism hurled by both Democrats and Republicans. But in another show of bipartisanship only a few weeks later, Congress granted nearly all of President Barack Obama’s request for emergency funding to combat the disease here and abroad.

Thumbnail image of Figure. Opens large image

NIH Director Francis Collins

In his State of the Union address earlier this month, the President expressed his appreciation: “In west Africa, our troops, our scientists, our doctors, our nurses, and health-care workers are rolling back Ebola—saving countless lives, and stopping the spread of disease”, he said, drawing applause from both sides of the aisle. “I couldn’t be prouder of them, and I thank this Congress for your bipartisan support of their efforts.”

Congress narrowly approved the US$5·4 billion emergency Ebola funding contained in the $1·1 trillion spending bill that kept the US Government running. But so far, it has done little to loosen the budget constraints on the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—even as a global health crisis such as Ebola reminded many lawmakers of its value. [MORE full text or PDF ] …

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Officials Looking To Cut Federal Spending Eye Medigap Policies

By Susan Jaffe  KAISER HEALTH NEWS in collaboration with      Nov. 21, 2011

Margaret Fisher is among the millions of seniors with private, supplemental health insurance that takes care of most of the medical bills Medicare doesn’t cover. If she has a health crisis, she reasons, it won’t become a financial crisis, too.

But officials looking for ways to cut the federal deficit are suggesting that these Medigap policies help explain why the government’s Medicare bill is rising so fast. If these private policies were less generous, they figure, seniors might reduce their trips to the doctor or find cheaper care, which in turn would save the government money.Fisher, 86, a cancer survivor   from Gaithersburg who has had two hip replacements, says that strategy could backfire… [Continued on Kaiser Health News and in The Washington Post]