Washington Week: Reform Law Heads to Supreme Court
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking for a ruling on the Affordable Care Act, the president signed a bill to fund autism research, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new payment model for some primary care doctors.
Administration asks High Court to Take ACA Case
On Wednesday, the Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of the ACA , making it very likely that the high court will hear at least one of the cases challenging landmark healthcare reform law before next year's presidential election.
The U.S. Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit ruled in August the the individual mandate provision of the ACA is unconstitutional. The justice department had until November to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case, but filing its petition on Wednesday sets the stage for oral arguments in the spring, and a final decision in June -- at the height of Obama's re-election campaign.
The 11th Circuit case was filed by 26 states that object to the ACA on a number of fronts, but opposition to the individual mandate is the main thrust of their argument. The individual mandate, considered the linchpin of the law, requires everyone to have health insurance by 2014.
In its petition filed Wednesday, lawyers for the Obama administration said the appeals court decision is "fundamentally flawed."
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who filed a lawsuit opposing the ACA the day after the president signed it in to law, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court on Friday. In early September, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Virginia's challenge to the ACA on the grounds that the state lacked the standing to sue the federal government.
President Signs Autism Bill
President Obama signed a $675 million bill to reauthorize funding for autism research and surveillance, as well as several other autism programs that were set to expire on September 30.
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questioned why "Planned Parenthood is being singled out as part of a Republican vendetta against an organization that provides family planning and other medical care to low-income women and men" Stearns sent a letter on September 15 to Planned
In Massachusetts, where more than a million seniors are on Medicare, the federal health insurance program accounts for 36.6 percent of hospital payments in the Bay State. “The hospitals would be walking away with a windfall because people would be
The appeals court also rejected the states' attack against the law's expansion of Medicaid, a federal-state partnership that provides health care to low-income Americans. "Until this court decides the extent to which the [law] survives,
The changes, including the recently approved elimination of coverage for childless adults and the medically needy, could save the state about $500 million. But these savings sacrifice up to $1 billion in federal funding to the Arizona Health Care Cost
"I've seen other students drop out, not because they can't afford tuition, but they can't afford the other costs of coming to college: rent, health insurance, transportation," Asiimwe said. "I was lucky." More US colleges and universities are
Some Low-Income Minn. Residents Must Change Health Plans ...
That's $15 million down and $430 million to go. State officials unveiled the website Monday to detail how they will achieve hundreds of millions of dollars in unspecified savings for state health programs for the poor but laid out few of their actual plans to do it. Gov. Scott Walker's administration has now been working on those plans privately for the better part of this year. The website will allow the public to give their input on the savings plans for Medicaid programs, which provide everything from medical care for poor children to nursing home care for the elderly (Stein, 9/26).
(Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.) Pioneer Press : Twin Cities Poor Told To Switch State Health Plans More than 70,000 Twin Cities residents enrolled in state health insurance programs will need to select a new health plan this fall. The changes stem from a new program at the Minnesota Department of Human Services designed to save money in the Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare health programs by putting managed care contracts out for competitive bids. This year, Gov. Mark Dayton called on his administration to implement competitive bidding for HMOs in the seven-county metro to test whether such a program can reduce overall costs (Snowbeck, 9/26).
Associated Press / The Seattle Times: Washington to limit the margin of emergency Medicaid Visits Washington is preparing to limit Medicaid coverage of emergency room visits for non-urgent care, in hopes of saving millions of dollars each years. State officials have notified customers that they will get coverage for only three such visits each year from Saturday .... Proponents tout the cost savings, while critics argue the new restrictions will force patients to try to diagnose before getting medical help needed (9 / 26).
The Lund Report : Healthy Kids Program Draws Questions From Republican Legislators The Healthy Kids program, which has cut the number of uninsured Oregon children in half since it began in 2009, drew numerous questions from Republican legislators during a legislative hearing last week ... One of (a recently released) audit's main focuses was an excess payment of $4.6 million from the federal government as a performance bonus. That bonus is given to states that exceed the federal government’s recommendation of how many children to insure each year (Waldroupe, 9/26).
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