After weeks of negotiations, last Thursday the Senate granted $26 billion in aid money to states and school districts to halt layoffs of thousands of government employees, teachers, and emergency and law enforcement workers. A large chunk of these much-needed funds will go toward Medicaid programs in states whose administrators have been struggling to...
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Unfortunately, a new problem has arisen for nurses and those who depend on their care. This year though there aren’t enough nurses out there to care for the sick, there are also many new RNs standing in unemployment lines. How can there be such a huge demand for nurses and simultaneously a crowd of...
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On May 13, 2009 the trustees of Medicare and Social Security released a report detailing the impending insolvency of our nation’s two biggest entitlement programs: Medicare in 2017 and Social Security in 2037. Projections have pushed these bankruptcy dates up from the previous report’s estimates of 2019 for Medicare and 2041 for Social Security....
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By 2014, each and every American will have an electronic medical record of their own. Electronic medical records (EMR) are “paperless paperwork,” or computerized copies of patient records, and the federal government hopes to make wide use of them to cut down health costs. The Obama administration’s health information technology program plans on...
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In a company statement released Wednesday June 23 CVS disagreed and threatened to end the program in Connecticut if it were required to give this discount to Medicaid recipients because doing so would make the program “economically unfeasible to continue.” Blumenthal has subpoenaed CVS in hopes his office will be able to force CVS...
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After going through another Medicare Annual Enrollment season, it is hard to believe just how many rules are listed and enforced by CMS.
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The recent Senate bill entitled "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" is intended to bring insurance to many uninsured Americans and to help the Medicare program avoid insolvency, which is projected to happen in 6 years. Unfortunately, the bill will probably have just the opposite effect.
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The White House has recently been circulating draft legislation that would create an executive agency for the purpose of overseeing Medicare reimbursement rates and policy changes. Under the proposal, there would be a paid five-member Independent Medicare Advisory Council whose members would serve five-year terms. They would be nominated by the president and subject...
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Many hospitals are quite happy with the news that the Obama administration has now agreed to decrease its proposed hospital cuts by about $70 billion. Originally the White house was planning to cut Medicaid and Medicare payments to hospitals around the US by about $224 billion over 10 years to aid healthcare reform. However,...
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President Barack Obama announced on Monday that he plans on closing the gap in prescription drug coverage for senior citizens.
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