Today's headlines include reports about how the Medicaid expansion is shaking out in Virginia and Texas, as well as a report about the role health care is playing as the House attempts to negotiate an immigration reform measure.
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We have done it. We have decreased the increase in the cost of healthcare. ... Is this decline the desperately needed bend in the healthcare cost curve or just the impact of the depressed economy? ... A slower growth of healthcare cost would mean less burden on the individual family, freeing that family to invest in and live a higher quality of life.
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Respiratory therapists, nursing aides, surgical technicians and other patient care workers plan to stage a walkout starting Tuesday morning at five University of California medical centers. More than 12,000 workers from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are expected to participate in the two-day strike over staffing, pay and pension reform, union officials said. An additional 3,400 workers from the University Professional and Technical Employees union plan a one-day sympathy strike (Gorman, 5/21).
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News reports from Texas, Louisiana, Iowa, Florida and Maine highlight states' continuing debates over this health law provision.
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Today's headlines include stories examining how the approaching implementation of some health law provisions is highlighting key policy questions.
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Gov. Mary Fallin proposed a last-minute legislative change Friday to the state's Insure Oklahoma program that would direct $50 million in state tobacco taxes to pay for more than 9,000 people who are expected to lose their health insurance under the program.
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The Los Angeles Times reports that states opting against expanded eligibility -- among them, some of the nation's unhealthiest -- could fall even further behind as the Affordable Care Act is implemented. News outlets also offer reports from Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, California, Florida and Virginia.
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One of the biggest questions hanging over the health-care system is how many young Americans will sign up for coverage once the Affordable Care Act begins to phase in this October. If too few buy insurance on the markets that the government is creating, insurance companies would be stuck covering primarily the old and the sick. They would have to pay out more per customer.
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The Obama administration's efforts to raise money from private sources for the health law have led some likely donors to become "skittish." Meanwhile, as GOP lawmakers seek to link the Internal Revenue Service issues to the health law, media outlets examine the IRS's reach in this regard.
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Some of the state's features that advocates say helped consumers make their insurance-purchasing decisions were not included in the the federal health law.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that "bare-bones" health plans may help some employers avoid the law's fines. Meanwhile, the Journal Sentinel explores how investors are assessing winning or losing stocks as a result of the law's implementation.
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Today's headlines include reports about the policy and political issues currently surrounding the health law's implementation.
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Much of the discussion over the Affordable Care Act has focused on whether it will bring down health care costs. Less attention has been paid to another goal of the act: improving patient safety. Each year tens of thousands of people die, and hundreds of thousands more are injured, as a result of medical error (Joanna C. Schwartz, 5/16).
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In 2011, the organization that oversees medical student training instituted a new regimen to replace the traditional 24-hour call schedule for medical residents, to improve patient safety and the residents' health. Under this new policy, residents in their first year of post-graduate training get increased supervision and are limited to 16-hour shifts.
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State Medicaid fraud investigators will be able to get federal matching funds to electronically search for potential fraud, under a final rule to be published on Friday. The rule, which will be published by the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, is expected to save the federal government about $34.3 million from fiscal 2014 through fiscal 2023 in fraudulent claims that would have been paid (Adams, 5/16).
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has put out most of the rules to implement coverage changes under the health care law, but a top official said Thursday that the public should expect more guidance on such issues as outreach and the enrollment of lawmakers and their staffs into the new marketplaces that will start accepting people in October.
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The Children's Center of Wayne County hosted its ninth annual Power of Possibilities Breakfast fundraiser, themed "Children Are the Heroes!" More than 500 community and business leaders gathered at Detroit's Westin Book Cadillac for the event presented by Ford Motor Company.
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Psychiatrists who take time with their patients are not the norm. It's not because others don't care. Rather the system rewards efficiency, not empathy.
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In a 91-to-7 vote, the Senate approved President Barack Obama's pick to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Tavenner, who has been the agency's acting administrator, was endorsed by Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.
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In medical school, we were taught not to withhold information from our patients or to be "paternal" in making decisions for them. We internalized the idea that fully informed patients are better equipped to make treatment decisions.
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