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Viewpoints: GOP Reps. on health law; Medicare & life expectancy; Georgia insurance exchange progresses

After a recent meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama and Republican House Members, we asked the president to meet with the GOP Doctors Caucus to discuss concerns that we have about how the health care law will affect our patients.

22 Jun 2011

First Edition: June 21, 2011

In today's headlines, the latest on the debt-reduction talks, the next chapter in the saga surrounding a McKinsey insurance survey and the details of the Obama administration's effort to tout the health law's prreventive care benefits.

22 Jun 2011

Nearly 20% medical claims processed inaccurately says the AMA annual report

According to a statement from the American Medical Association (AMA), health insurance companies are inaccurately processing nearly one in five medical claims, slowing payments to doctors and adding bureaucratic headaches to patients.

21 Jun 2011

Crime for the sake of prison health care

In a bizarre case, 59-year-old Richard James Verone was jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. He had handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report. He proceeded to wait for the police right there.

21 Jun 2011

Commercial health insurers have increased rate of inaccurate claims payments: AMA

The overall rate of inaccurate claims payments increased since last year among leading commercial health insurers, according to American Medical Association's (AMA) fourth annual National Health Insurer Report Card. Claims-processing errors by health insurance companies waste billions of dollars and frustrate patients and physicians.

21 Jun 2011

Roundup: State employee benefit battles heat up; Wis. Gov. to remake Medicaid program; Mass. cost controls

The Legislature is close to wrapping up its work on the $25 billion state budget bill after the Senate made minor changes to the plan late Sunday before approving it by a lopsided margin. ... the spending plan for the budget year that starts July 1 would eliminate more than 2,000 state jobs and includes cuts in most state departments and agencies.

21 Jun 2011

Activists, advocacy groups rev up behind their causes, revisit health law positions

As Tea Partiers roll through Iowa on a bus tour, single-payer advocates rally outside the annual convention of the health insurer trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans. Meanwhile, as the American Medical Association's House of Delegates meets in Chicago, its members will revisit the organzation's position on the individual mandate.

20 Jun 2011

September will mark the end of HHS mini-med waiver program

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that it will stop accepting applications for waivers from the health law's minimum coverage requirements.

20 Jun 2011

HHS announces deadline for health law waivers

The Obama administration said Friday that it was shutting down a program that had provided exemptions from the new health care law for many employers and labor unions offering bare-bones insurance coverage to workers.

20 Jun 2011

Health insurance does not protect Arizonans from experiencing medical debt

Health insurance is not protecting Arizonans from having problems paying medical bills, and having bill problems is keeping families from getting needed medical care and prescription medicines, a new study has found.

18 Jun 2011

Low levels of education, poverty and other social factors contribute to many U.S. deaths

How researchers classify and quantify causes of death across a population has evolved in recent decades. In addition to long-recognized physiological causes such as heart attack and cancer, the role of behavioral factors-including smoking, dietary patterns and inactivity-began to be quantified in the 1990s. More recent research has begun to look at the contribution of social factors to U.S. mortality.

18 Jun 2011

ADRQ finds high increase in annual premium for employer-sponsored health plans

Employees of private-sector companies contributed up to 121 percent more in 2009 for their yearly share of their employer-sponsored health insurance coverage than they did in 2001, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

18 Jun 2011

Baucus challenges McKinsey & Company on employer insurance survey

The survey concluded that an estimated 30 percent or more of businesses would drop employer-sponsored health coverage after 2014 because of the health law. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., is demanding that the consulting firm release its methodology.

18 Jun 2011

House appropriators ok measure that prohibits feds from enforcing individual mandate

By defunding this health law provision next year, even though it doesn't actually kick in until 2014, the measure could prevent the administration from hiring and training the necessary Internal Revenue Service personnel.

18 Jun 2011

News highlights: Report urges smoke-free laws; N.J. state workers rally against pension and health care changes

A million people would quit smoking, nearly 400,000 teenagers would never start, and more than 700,000 lives would be saved if the 27 U.S. states that don't have good antismoking laws would adopt them, the American Cancer Society projected on Wednesday.

18 Jun 2011

Viewpoints: 'Two great dangers' of Obamacare; Sen. Klobuchar and Rep. Paulsen on wellness; 'McKinseyGate'

Obamacare poses two great dangers to our nation: lower quality of care and runaway costs. It will stifle innovation and lead to rationing. But the overwhelming cost and the damage it will do to our nation's finances at a pivotal moment in our history deserve greater scrutiny.

18 Jun 2011

Pawlenty aims verbal barb at Romney

On Thursday, GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty called rival Mitt Romney a "co-conspirator" in the federal health overhaul. He also repeated his call for repealing the measure, and maintained that, when he was governor, he handled health reform "the right way."

17 Jun 2011

First Edition: June 17, 2011

Today's headlines include reports about how health entitlement programs are faring in the ongoing deficit-reduction negotiations.

17 Jun 2011

ECCHC, Kool Smiles open new dental office in East Chicago

East Chicago residents will soon have something new to smile about. Kool Smiles, a leading dental health provider dedicated to expanding access to quality dental care for children and families in underserved communities, is opening a new office in East Chicago in partnership with the East Chicago Community Health Center.

17 Jun 2011

Federal health law implementation drives state policy debates

Examples of implementation activity at the state level stem from preparations underway for health insurance exchanges.

17 Jun 2011

Health Insurance News and Research

Viewpoints: GOP Reps. on health law; Medicare & life expectancy; Georgia insurance exchange progresses

First Edition: June 21, 2011

Nearly 20% medical claims processed inaccurately says the AMA annual report

Crime for the sake of prison health care

Commercial health insurers have increased rate of inaccurate claims payments: AMA

Roundup: State employee benefit battles heat up; Wis. Gov. to remake Medicaid program; Mass. cost controls

Activists, advocacy groups rev up behind their causes, revisit health law positions

September will mark the end of HHS mini-med waiver program

HHS announces deadline for health law waivers

Health insurance does not protect Arizonans from experiencing medical debt

Low levels of education, poverty and other social factors contribute to many U.S. deaths

ADRQ finds high increase in annual premium for employer-sponsored health plans

Baucus challenges McKinsey & Company on employer insurance survey

House appropriators ok measure that prohibits feds from enforcing individual mandate

News highlights: Report urges smoke-free laws; N.J. state workers rally against pension and health care changes

Viewpoints: 'Two great dangers' of Obamacare; Sen. Klobuchar and Rep. Paulsen on wellness; 'McKinseyGate'

Pawlenty aims verbal barb at Romney

First Edition: June 17, 2011

ECCHC, Kool Smiles open new dental office in East Chicago

Federal health law implementation drives state policy debates

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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