Medicare and Social Security officials said that they're doing their best to identify and enroll Medicare beneficiaries who qualify for the drug program's financial assistance, but members of a Senate panel said more must be done. Read more »
The multiple challenges that must be met to maintain current levels of enrollment in the State Children's Health Insurance Program dominated the attention of the Senate Finance Committee, with only muted discussion of expanding the program at a hearing on its reauthorization. Read more »
President Bush's fiscal 2008 budget request will include new funding to build an electronic "rapid learning" health care network, said Carolyn Clancy, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The network would use the resources of individual data repositories at health plans and other large health systems. Read more »
Liberal budget analysts expressed alarm over the outlook for the federal budget, saying projected shortfalls must be addressed through a combination of tax increases, budget cuts, and an overhaul of the U.S. health system. Read more »
Between Democrats looking for ways to pay for an expansion of children's health coverage and Republicans looking for ways to trim entitlement spending, Medicare is in line for major cuts in the Administration's fiscal 2008 budget proposal, lobbyists and analysts are predicting. Read more »
One of the premises behind "consumer-driven health care" is that overall health costs won't rise as quickly if patients are prodded to shop for better value by requiring them to pay a significant share of their medical expenses. But what if the way benefits are designed fails to steer them to the products and services that offer the best value? Fixing that problem is the key that will help unlock the savings potential of consumer-driven health care, according to an article in Health Affairs. Read more »