Selected stories from the daily newsletter CQ HealthBeat from the week of June 20, 2011. Provided as a service under rights licensed by The Commonwealth Fund. The full-text version of this newsletter is available in the
newsletter archive.
One thing seems quite certain: Health and Human Services officials aren't going to make anybody happy when sometime around the July Fourth weekend they release a proposed regulation that will spell out what states must do to create health insurances exchanges. Read more »
The share of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance dropped from 69 percent in 1999-2000 to 61 percent in 2008-2009. But the health care law might counter that trend among the nation's smallest businesses, a pair of recently issued reports said. Read more »
Bruce Vladeck, who ran the Medicare and Medicaid programs in the Clinton administration, told a Senate Finance Committee hearing that the budget crisis facing the nation stems not from those two entitlements but from inadequate revenue and a flagging economy. Pump up revenues and get the economy growing and the financing challenges involved with the two government health care programs are manageable, he said. Read more »
A survey of 75 employers who provide health insurance to their workers found that they view the new nonprofit institute created to fund comparative effectiveness research as the most reliable source of information on the subject. Read more »
House lawmakers reintroduced a bipartisan bill requiring the government to negotiate lower prescription drug prices in Medicare, saying they hoped to push the idea in the debt ceiling talks. Read more »
American Medical Association President Cecil B. Wilson said that the physician organization's House of Delegates voted "overwhelmingly" to reaffirm its position supporting "individual responsibility" when it comes to the purchase of health insurance as long as assistance is made available to those who cannot afford it. Read more »