Democrats continued to call for an extension of the May 15 Medicare drug benefit enrollment deadline as Bush administration officials released new enrollment figures and urged beneficiaries to enroll before the deadline. More than 1 million Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in the prescription drug plan (PL 108-173) between late April and May 6. The new total of beneficiaries in stand-alone prescription drug plans is about 9 million with more than 1 million Medicare beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage plans that offer health and prescription drug benefits, according to new government figures. Read more »
Eli Lilly announced plans to continue distribution of free or low-cost drugs to certain low-income enrollees in the new Medicare drug benefit, reversing an earlier decision to end its giveaway program for all Medicare beneficiaries to avoid running afoul of federal anti-kickback law. Meanwhile, a Johnson & Johnson official provided new details about a "Companion Rx Program" involving at least five big drugmakers to jointly offer low-cost drugs to millions of low-income Medicare beneficiaries once they reach the "doughnut hole" portion of the Medicare drug benefit. Read more »
A week designed to showcase the Senate Republican health care agenda ended with no legislation moved, but it did give Democrats a chance to air their grievances on several health issues and Republicans an opportunity to play to their base with White House—backed bills to help doctors and small businesses. Senate leaders tried to move three measures last week: two that would have limited medical malpractice awards and one intended to provide small businesses with more affordable health insurance. The small-business health bill was blocked from a floor vote after Republicans fell short of the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster, 55—43. Even so, it was a baby step forward for legislation that had never made it out of committee in previous Congresses. Read more »
A new study says that the United States is up to a dozen years behind other developed nations in adopting health information technology systems. Yet the nation spends two-and-a-half times more per capita on health care than the median country among the 30 nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the study notes. The authors stopped short of saying underuse of health IT explains the apparently bloated levels of health spending in the United States. But to the extent the technology saves money, the lack of a national information technology network "could exacerbate the position of the United States relative to countries that are [health IT] leaders," the study said. Read more »
A Massachusetts state official reiterated that his state's new health care coverage mandate could be duplicated but the state had a unique advantage to model the system. Speaking before a forum hosted by the nonpartisan Alliance for Health Reform, Timothy Murphy, Massachusetts secretary of health and human services, explained the state's new plan and the lessons other states and the federal government could learn from the process. The law, which was signed on April 12, will require the state's 6.4 million residents—550,000 of whom are uninsured—to obtain health care coverage by July 1, 2007. The law also will subsidize premiums on a sliding scale for people earning below 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Read more »
Patients getting bypass surgery from surgeons or hospitals highly rated on quality performance measures were about half as likely to die as patients who received the surgery from a provider with poor ratings, according to a new study. Even so, there is no evidence indicating patients are using the performance data to select top-performing providers, the study's authors found. The study published in the May/June edition of the journal Health Affairs looked at quality reporting on bypass surgery in New York and its effect on physicians and patients. It relied on publicly available data from 31 hospitals between 1989 and 2002. Read more »