First Edition: September 27, 2012

Today's headlines include reports about how the health law and Medicare are buzz words in public opinion polls and on the campaign trail.

Kaiser Health News: Lawmaker Pitches New FDA Office Of Mobile Health
Kaiser Health News staff writer Jenny Gold reports: "There are already tens of thousands of mobile health applications available for download on smart phones and tablets, allowing consumers to do anything from count calories to monitor their blood sugar level and fight depression. But it can be hard to know which ones actually deliver on their health claims and provide accurate information" (Gold, 9/26). Read the story.

Kaiser Health News: Poll: Younger Americans More Receptive To GOP Medicare Plan
Kaiser Health News staff writer Jordan Rau reports: "The Republican proposal to change Medicare that has been championed by GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan remains unpopular with Americans, although younger people are more receptive to it than older ones, according to a new poll" (Rau, 9/27). Read the story.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Md. Blues Chief Blasts Plan To Shift Hospital Costs To Insurers
Now on Kaiser Health News' blog, Jay Hancock reports: "Negotiations to avert a breakdown in Maryland's unique system of regulating hospital prices have deteriorated into a stalemate between the state's largest insurer and the Maryland Hospital Association. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield CEO Chet Burrell, speaking out for the first time about the talks, blames hospitals for their proposal to shift hundreds of millions in costs to CareFirst and other private insurers in an attempt to control rising Medicare spending" (Hancock, 9/27). Check out what else is on the blog.

Kaiser Health News: Analysis: Access To Health Care Beginning To Look Like Airline Travel
In this Kaiser Health News analysis, Michael L. Millenson writes: "The old axis of access in U.S. health care – insured or uninsured – is being replaced by the kind of gradations and complexity in determining who-gets-what-when-for-what-price for which the airline industry has become famous" (Millenson, 9/26). Read the analysis.

Los Angeles Times: Romney Cites His Healthcare Law As Proof Of His Compassion
Mitt Romney, while campaigning in Ohio on Wednesday, highlighted the healthcare law that he passed while governor of Massachusetts as proof of his empathy for people. … The healthcare law is controversial among conservatives because it included a mandate that nearly every state resident purchase the insurance or be fined; it served as the model of the federal healthcare law that is Obama's signature act as president, and that is an anathema to many Republicans (Mehta, 9/26).

Politico: Romney Hits 'Obamacare' In Ohio
Facing falling poll numbers in Ohio, Mitt Romney reconfigured his stump speech here, ratcheting up his attack on President Barack Obama's health care law and returning to his once-abandoned talking points about the Founding Fathers and the debt clock. … Instead of simply vowing to repeal the health care overhaul, Romney spoke more about the danger it poses to American freedoms (Gibson, 9/26).

The Washington Post: Romney Shows Political Flexibility On Health Care
Over the course of a half hour on Wednesday evening, Mitt Romney put on a vivid display of his political flexibility on the lightning-rod issue of health care. As his surrogates were warming up a crowd of 3,600 at the SeaGate Convention Centre in downtown Toledo, Romney sat backstage for an interview with NBC News, during which  he fully embraced the health care overhaul he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. … Then, just minutes later, Romney stepped out to rally his supporters here with a sharp critique of Obama's national health-care overhaul, calling the federal law "Exhibit No. 1" of Obama's liberal view of government, even though it is very similar to Romney's own Massachusetts law (Rucker, 9/26).

The New York Times: Romney Ad Reaches Out To Working Class
Mitt Romney stepped up his efforts to repair the damage from his "47 percent" comments, releasing a new television ad on Wednesday. … In an NBC News interview on Wednesday, Mr. Romney, explaining why he could relate to middle-class voters, talked about the health care law he championed as governor of Massachusetts but rarely mentions on the campaign trail. "Don't forget -; I got everybody in my state insured," he said. "One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record" (Parker, 9/26).

Politico: Swing-States Polls: President Obama Tops Mitt Romney On Medicare
And that's despite weeks of Republican attacks that the president is taking $716 billion from Medicare to pay for "Obamacare." In Florida, Obama is up by 15 percentage points on the question of who would do a better job on Medicare, 55 percent to 40 percent. The numbers are consistent in all three states. Obama leads 55 percent to 39 percent in Ohio, and 55 percent to 39 percent in Pennsylvania (Norman, 9/27).

The Wall Street Journal: Big Firms Overhaul Health Coverage
Two big employers are planning a radical change in the way they provide health benefits to their workers, giving employees a fixed sum of money and allowing them to choose their medical coverage and insurer from an online marketplace (Mathews, 9/26).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: How To Maximize Your Savings Through Smart Health Care Benefit Decisions
Employers will soon be offering workers their yearly opportunity to make changes to their health care benefits. All too often this open-enrollment period has required combing through pages and pages of confusing insurance terms. But this year workers will receive help translating that jargon thanks to a new requirement that insurers provide a user-friendly coverage summary of all health plans. Combined with innovative wellness plans that reward employees for staying health, experts say millions of workers should be able to make smarter benefit decision and save money in the process (9/26).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Inspector General: Medicare Wrongly Paid For $25M In Refills On Painkillers, Other Drugs
Medicare routinely refilled pain pills and other restricted medications that are barred by federal law from renewal without a fresh prescription, government inspectors said in a report Thursday (9/27).

The Wall Street Journal: Making The 'Pharmacy Crawl'
The clampdown by Florida and at least seven other states has left some pain-sufferers struggling to get their medicine. That has put drug-enforcement and public-health officials at odds with some doctors and patients legitimately prescribed the pills. Several states now make doctors criminally liable and revoke their licenses for writing prescriptions for painkillers that lead to overdoses, prompting many to stop prescribing them at all. Other states have tightened regulation of pain clinics, forcing so-called pill mills to close but leaving people in need of pain medications with fewer doctors (Martin, 9/26).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Md. Health Reform Panel To Vote On State's Benchmark Health Benefit Plan
A Maryland panel working on implementing federal health care reform is planning to take a vote on the state's benchmark health benefit plan. The Maryland Health Care Reform Coordinating Council is scheduled to meet Thursday in Annapolis (9/27).