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Aetna acquires additional stake in Medicare and Medicaid business

Aetna announced Monday plans to acquire Bethesda-based Coventry Health Care in a deal valued at $5.7 billion, part of the managed-care giant's effort to beef up its Medicare and Medicaid programs. The purchase comes as insurance companies race to position themselves for a broad expansion of health-care coverage slated to take effect in 2014, following the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the comprehensive reforms supported by the Obama administration.

22 Aug 2012

Views on Medicare: Ryan plan could hurt disabled Americans; Pitting the poor against seniors

Opinion writers continue to look at the debate about Medicare as it becomes a focal point of the presidential election.

22 Aug 2012

Viewpoints: The importance of hepatitis C testing; Medicaid needs to provide coverage for circumcision

I consider myself to be a fortunate person. I have a good education, a great job and excellent health insurance. I am a baby boomer who has aged reasonably well and can look forward to a fairly comfortable retirement. I am also fortunate because I was diagnosed with hepatitis C by a proactive and knowledgeable doctor in the late 1990s and had the opportunity to be treated and cured. The odds are that if I had not been diagnosed and treated, I would be on a liver transplant list right now, have liver cancer or even be dead from this disease.

22 Aug 2012

First Edition: August 21, 2012

Today's headlines include reports from the campaign trail, where House candidates are turning up the Medicare debate; and from the health care marketkplace, where Aetna acquired Coventry Health, a Medicare and Medicaid insurer.

21 Aug 2012

Competing Medicare positions: The debate behind the campaign rhetoric

As the Romney and Obama campaigns continue to spar over Medicare politics, news outlets examine the questions in play.

21 Aug 2012

Views on Medicare debate: Krugman skewers Ryan's budget plan; WSJ says Obama setting a double standard

On the spending side, Mr. Ryan proposes huge cuts in Medicaid, turning it over to the states while sharply reducing funding relative to projections under current policy. That saves around $800 billion. He proposes similar harsh cuts in food stamps, saving a further $130 billion or so, plus a grab-bag of other cuts, such as reduced aid to college students.

21 Aug 2012

Viewpoints: Insuring medical treatments are well researched; GOP Govs reluctance on exchanges may backfire

By 1990, many doctors were recommending hormone replacement therapy to healthy middle-aged women and P.S.A. screening for prostate cancer to older men. Both interventions had become standard medical practice. But in 2002, a randomized trial showed that preventive hormone replacement caused more problems (more heart disease and breast cancer) than it solved. ... Then, in 2009, trials showed that P.S.A. screening led to many unnecessary surgeries and had a dubious effect on prostate cancer deaths.

21 Aug 2012

Majority of Californians support health reform, Poll says; Gov. Brown plans special legislative session on health law

Californians support health reform, a new polls says, even as Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown seeks a special session from state lawmakers to deal with health reform issues, which he says can go no further without more federal guidance.

21 Aug 2012

Roundup: Abortion cases against Kan. Planned Parenthood dropped; Maine Readies session on money owed hospitals; Calif. suing doc over billing practices

The first criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood came to an abrupt end Friday when Kansas prosecutors dropped all charges against a local affiliate accused of failing to determine the viability of fetuses before abortions were performed. ... They said that state law did not prohibit Planned Parenthood from using the gestational age of fetuses to determine whether they were viable or could survive outside of the womb.

21 Aug 2012

Presidential campaign keeps focus on Medicare

GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and his running-mate pick Paul Ryan are taking their Medicare message to New Hampshire today. Meanwhile, President Obama blasts the Republican ticket on its Medicare plan.

20 Aug 2012

First Edition: August 20, 2012

Today's headlines focus on how the Medicare story is continuing to unfold on the presidential campaign trail.

20 Aug 2012

Obama, Ryan make pitches for Medicare plans

After several days in which he mentioned only generalities on the campaign trail, Representative Paul D. Ryan sought on Saturday to play offense on Medicare, attacking in detail President Obama's health care plan, seizing an issue that has the potential to be one of Mr. Ryan's biggest liabilities in joining the Republican presidential ticket.

20 Aug 2012

Polls: Opposition to changing Medicare cuts across party lines

Two polls, one conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, and another conducted by KFF and the Washington Post, find that a majority of Republicans and Democrats oppose plans to cut Medicare benefits or transform the program into a "definied-contribution" model.

18 Aug 2012

Outcome of governors' races will impact the health law's reach

Politico Pro reports that if power shifts to the right the implementation of the health law could be minimized.

18 Aug 2012

Views from Mass.: Novel effort to curb health costs is being closely watched

Now Massachusetts, which has the highest per capita health spending of any state in the country, is moving on the cost front. A bill signed last week by Democratic Governor Deval Patrick seeks to cut expenses by shifting the entire health system away from traditional open-ended fee-for-service medicine and setting legal limits on what the state and its residents are willing to pay. According to a statement by Patrick, the new law "cracks the code on cost," by "ushering in the end of fee-for-service in Massachusetts in favor of better care and lower costs."

18 Aug 2012

Safety net hospitals prepare for changes from health law; Patients hesitant to challenge doctors

Safety-net hospitals – which often provide care to low-income and uninsured populations – are facing reduced federal and state support for uncompensated care under the Affordable Care Act. However, this study points out that 23 million people will remain uninsured and continue to need care from the hospitals.

18 Aug 2012

Viewpoints: Calif. health exchange off to good start; Fay Vincent on access problems for disabled; How 'upcoding' increases health costs

The California Health Benefits Exchange, established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to offer subsidized private coverage to most of the uninsured, represents an excellent opportunity to improve the quality and cost of healthcare in this state.

18 Aug 2012

Hedge funds see investment potential resulting from health law

Fund managers appeared to be placing bets on health insurers -- starting before the Supreme Court's health law ruling.

17 Aug 2012

Affordable Care Act: an interview with Val J. Halamandaris, President of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC)

The intent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to provide all Americans with medical insurance. Thirty-five million additional people will be covered, in part by government premiums and in part by making it easier for them to buy their own insurance.

17 Aug 2012

Roundup: States limit Medicaid mental health prescriptions; Mass. to vote on assisted suicide; Insurer earnings drop in Mass.

Medicaid is the largest funder of mental health services in the United States. In 2008, in all 50 states, Medicaid spent a total of $4.5 billion on behavioral health drugs, about a fifth of the $22.5 billion spent by the program on all pharmaceuticals combined. Roughly a third of the participants in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program experience a mental health episode annually, according to a 2010 report by the Mental Health Services Administration.

17 Aug 2012

Health Insurance News and Research

Aetna acquires additional stake in Medicare and Medicaid business

Views on Medicare: Ryan plan could hurt disabled Americans; Pitting the poor against seniors

Viewpoints: The importance of hepatitis C testing; Medicaid needs to provide coverage for circumcision

First Edition: August 21, 2012

Competing Medicare positions: The debate behind the campaign rhetoric

Views on Medicare debate: Krugman skewers Ryan's budget plan; WSJ says Obama setting a double standard

Viewpoints: Insuring medical treatments are well researched; GOP Govs reluctance on exchanges may backfire

Majority of Californians support health reform, Poll says; Gov. Brown plans special legislative session on health law

Roundup: Abortion cases against Kan. Planned Parenthood dropped; Maine Readies session on money owed hospitals; Calif. suing doc over billing practices

Presidential campaign keeps focus on Medicare

First Edition: August 20, 2012

Obama, Ryan make pitches for Medicare plans

Polls: Opposition to changing Medicare cuts across party lines

Outcome of governors' races will impact the health law's reach

Views from Mass.: Novel effort to curb health costs is being closely watched

Safety net hospitals prepare for changes from health law; Patients hesitant to challenge doctors

Viewpoints: Calif. health exchange off to good start; Fay Vincent on access problems for disabled; How 'upcoding' increases health costs

Hedge funds see investment potential resulting from health law

Affordable Care Act: an interview with Val J. Halamandaris, President of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC)

Roundup: States limit Medicaid mental health prescriptions; Mass. to vote on assisted suicide; Insurer earnings drop in Mass.

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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