President Obama sent Congress a $3.6 trillion budget Thursday that proposes costly efforts to expand health care coverage, address global climate change and also rein in swelling deficits. Read more »
Many Americans with health insurance are forgoing needed medical care because of costs, witnesses said during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on underinsurance. Read more »
Home health providers would see their Medicare reimbursements cut by 5.5 percent in 2010 while payments to skilled nursing facilities and inpatient rehabilitation facilities would be frozen at current rates, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's March report released last week. For hospitals, the panel known as MedPAC recommends that Congress increase payment rates for the acute inpatient and outpatient prospective payment systems in 2010 by the projected rate of increase in the hospital market basket index. Congress should also implement a hospital quality incentive payment program funded by a 1 percent reduction in indirect medical education payments. Read more »
Living in a community with high rates of uninsured individuals could be detrimental to the financial and physical well-being of even those with health insurance, according to a new Institute of Medicine report issued. Read more »
The year 2009 will mark the biggest-ever one-year jump in health care's share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with health care outlays rising a full percentage point to 17.6 percent, government economists say in a new report. Read more »
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus called on the Congressional Budget Office Wednesday "to help us find a way to make health reform work," saying that the agency's assessment of how much overhaul proposals will cost or save "will make or break this enterprise." Read more »