Under the terms of the fiscal 2006 federal budget agreement announced by House and Senate negotiators, the Senate Finance Committee is under instructions to recommend cuts totaling $10 billion over the period 2006–2010. But it's too soon to tell whether there are enough votes on the committee to take all $10 billion from Medicaid, say Senate staffers and health care lobbyists. Logically, that suggests that Medicare cuts may yet be in the offing under the reconciliation process, which allows spending reductions to be approved in the Senate by a simple majority. But there are reasons to doubt that Medicare will be used to hit the $10 billion target, analysts said. Read more »
Managed care executives urged federal policy makers to support uniform standards that would be used by both government programs and private health plans to measure the performance of doctors in delivering "ambulatory" care—treatment of patients who aren't hospitalized. Insurers and medical groups are working on a common set of standards and their embrace by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would be a key step toward starting performance-based payment of doctors in Medicare, observers say. Without a uniform set of standards, medical offices won't have the time or administrative staff to report data showing how individual doctors do on the performance measures, analysts say. Read more »
Seniors often skip doses, take smaller doses, or fail to fill their prescriptions when faced with costly drug regiments, according to a Tufts–New England Medical Center study published recently in the journal Health Affairs. Among seniors with no drug coverage, 36.8 percent did not adhere to specific drug regimens, while 35.2 percent of low-income seniors and 34.9 percent of those with three or more chronic conditions failed to adhere to their prescribed doses, researchers found. The Commonwealth Fund and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation supported the research compiled by Dana Gelb Safran, director of Tufts' Health Institute, and colleagues. Read more »
Slightly more than a year from now, a fast-growing movement of hospitals, medical societies, and government agencies aims to have saved its 100,000th life by improving the way health care is delivered in the nation's medical facilities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it will help out by lending its expertise in preventing and monitoring hospital-based infections. Called the "100,000 Lives Campaign," the project is the brainchild of Donald Berwick, M.D., head of the Cambridge, Mass.–based Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Read more »
More than 20 million working Americans do not have health care coverage, leaving them unable to see a doctor when they need one and in poorer health than Americans who have health care insurance, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The study, released during a kickoff event for "Cover the Uninsured Week" (May 1–8), found the problem is pervasive in every state. Those with the highest rates of uninsured residents among employed adults include Texas (27 percent), New Mexico (23 percent), and Florida (22 percent). States with the lowest rates of uninsured working Americans include Minnesota (7 percent) and Hawaii (9 percent). Read more »