Category: Healthcare Law

Snyder highlights aging infrastructure, Medicaid expansion

Gov. Rick Snyder called Tuesday for addressing Michigan’s aging infrastructure over the next several decades, citing the Flint water crisis that has roiled his administration and a football field-sized sinkhole that formed recently in suburban Detroit. In his seventh annual State of the State address to lawmakers, the Republican also touted the state’s Medicaid expansion, which has provided health insurance to 600,000 low-income adults but which is in jeopardy as the GOP-led Congress seeks to repeal the federal health care law.

CBO: Repealing ACA could mean 32 million would lose insurance

A Republican-sponsored repeal of Obamacare without a replacement plan would leave 32 million people uninsured by 2026, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted in an estimate released Tuesday. CBO evaluated what would happen if Congress enacts a reconciliation bill similar to one from 2015 that would eliminate Obamacare’s mandate penalties and subsidies while leaving the insurance market reforms in place.

Steep Bills Surprise Patients Who Go ‘Out-of-Network’

Patients using specialists outside their health-plan network often receive surprise bills for services that cost far more than what Medicare considers a fair rate, a new study suggests. Most insurers use rates set by Medicare — the publicly funded insurance program for the elderly — as the benchmark for what they’ll pay health care providers.

GAO Marshalls Its Data to Warn Leaders of Fiscal Crisis

Set apart with an atypically colorful cover designed around a compass, the first-ever annual report on fiscal health from the Government Accountability Office warns the incoming president and congressional leaders that federal finances remain on an “unsustainable long-term fiscal path.” The 47-page compilation done in cooperation with the Congressional Budget Office combines the latest alarming macro-numbers with calls for action by Congress as well as specific remedies that can be undertaken by agency managers.

Tax Advocate: Use tax breaks you’re entitled to

… Revenue code to you, yourself,” she said. “If you’re an employee, you might be benefiting from employer-provided health insurance or tax-deferred retirement savings,” she said. “If you own a home, you may be benefiting from the deduction of mortgage …

Baker plans $2,000 employer assessment to address health costs

Companies that do not offer their employees health insurance would pay a $2,000 annual assessment per full-time worker to the state under a plan Gov. Charlie Baker plans to offer later this month to blunt the impact of escalating, enrollment-driven costs in the state’s Medicaid program, the State House News Service has learned. The proposal — the bulk of which is expected to be filed within the governor’s budget due on Jan 25 — would also impose growth caps on the rates health providers can charge for medical services in an effort to control the cost of care in the commercial market and make it more affordable for employers.

Drugs For Rare Diseases Have Become Uncommonly Rich Monopolies

More than 30 years ago, Congress overwhelmingly passed a landmark health bill aimed at motivating pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs for people whose rare diseases had been ignored. But lucrative financial incentives created by the Orphan Drug Act signed into law by President Reagan in 1983 succeeded far beyond anyone’s expectations.

Washington Post: A prescription for disaster

… or tighten rules that discourage people from signing up only when they are sick, for example. On top of an improved health care system, the GOP could most likely get some Democratic votes for this approach. If Republicans went on to call that repeal …

Uncertainty and opportunity in 2017

… to read, and endless mind bending hours in the Joint Budget Committee. I had fully intended to write in detail about health care or education funding or public land use this month. I came to the realization however, in drafting a column, that there …

Uncertainty and opportunity in 2017

… to read, and endless mind bending hours in the Joint Budget Committee. I had fully intended to write in detail about health care or education funding or public land use this month. I came to the realization however, in drafting a column, that there …

Trump promises health care ‘for everybody’

President-elect Donald Trump wants health “insurance for everybody,” he told The Washington Post, no small feat in a country where millions are uninsured. The Republican has long lashed out at President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act, campaigning on a pledge to repeal and replace it.

Why Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Stock Slipped 32.4% in 2016

A handful of issues concerning Sanofi Regeneron’s stock fell along with its biotech peers at the beginning of 2016, but it wasn’t long before more specific issues that continue to hound the company and its big pharma partner reared their ugly head. In March, patent litigation concerning the partners’ next-generation cholesterol-lowering drug, Praluent, drove down the stocks.

Back briefs

If you haven’t signed up for health insurance, you may soon be getting a not-too-subtle nudge from the taxman. The IRS is sending personalized letters to millions of taxpayers who might be uninsured, reminding them that they could be on the hook for hundreds of dollars in fines under the federal health care law if they don’t sign up soon through HealthCare.gov .

Make North Carolina great again

… of residents. They tried to strip valuable assets away from local governments. They also thumbed their noses at health care reform. They prevented the state from setting up insurance exchanges to attract competition in the health insurance market …

What Does 2017 Hold for Obamacare?

… calculation of 2.5% of income above the filing threshold. Yet the cost of an average bronze-tier plan through the health insurance marketplace is expected to rise slightly, adding perhaps $100 to the maximum penalty for high-income individuals. …

Sunovion Announces Pivotal Study Results for Novel Drug Candidate…

Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. today announced that results of a pivotal Phase 2/3 study evaluating novel drug candidate dasotraline in children ages 6 to 12 years with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder showed statistically significant improvement in the 4mg/day dose arm compared to placebo. The 2mg/day dose arm did not demonstrate a statistically significant difference from placebo.

IRS letters warn millions over insurance penalty

If you haven’t signed up for health insurance, you may soon be getting a not-too-subtle nudge from the taxman. The IRS is sending personalized letters to millions of taxpayers who might be uninsured, reminding them that they could be on the hook for hundreds of dollars in fines under the federal health care law if they don’t sign up soon through HealthCare.gov.

POLITICAL: How to fix Obama / SCOTUS – care

Congress has begun the work of replacing the Affordable Care Act, and that means lawmakers will soon face the thorny dilemma that confronts every effort to overhaul health insurance: , and someone has to pay. The 2010 health law forced insurers to sell coverage to anyone, at the same price, regardless of their risk of incurring big claims.

POLITICAL: How to fix Obama / SCOTUS – care

Congress has begun the work of replacing the Affordable Care Act, and that means lawmakers will soon face the thorny dilemma that confronts every effort to overhaul health insurance: , and someone has to pay. The 2010 health law forced insurers to sell coverage to anyone, at the same price, regardless of their risk of incurring big claims.

Obamacare is a hard act to follow

… for all Americans that could garner broad support won’t work. Plans that would work can’t garner broad support. Health care in the United States is extremely costly, the issue of how coverage ought to be paid for is divisive, and attempts like …

Obamacare is a hard act to follow

… for all Americans that could garner broad support won’t work. Plans that would work can’t garner broad support. Health care in the United States is extremely costly, the issue of how coverage ought to be paid for is divisive, and attempts like …