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Congress Votes to Repeal Small Part of Health Law
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- The Senate has voted to send the White House its first rollback of last year's health care law, a bipartisan repeal of a burdensome tax reporting requirement that's widely unpopular with businesses. The Senate voted 87 to 12 to repeal the filing requirement, which would have forced millions of businesses to file tax forms for every vendor selling them more than $600 in goods each year, starting in 2012. The filing requirement is unrelated to health care. However, it would have been used to pay for part of the new health law. President Barack Obama has said he favors repealing ...
Opinion: Was Health Care on the Mend Before Reform?
By John Merline - AOL NewsAs the new Republican House majority gets set to vote on repealing health care reform, critics of the move say that doing so would only put the country back on its unsustainable health care path -- one characterized by runaway costs. But how accurate is that worry? The latest figures on national health spending show that, well before reform, the nation's health care system was succeeding in slowing the rate of spending growth on its own. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, national health spending climbed just 4 percent last year. The low number is attributed to the ...
McConnell Flip-Flops on Earmarks, But Does It Really Matter?
By Paul Wachter - AOL News(Nov. 16) -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reversed himself Monday and endorsed a moratorium on earmarks, the sly legislative devices by which members of Congress direct federal funds to their pet projects. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint joined other GOP tea partiers in pressuring McConnell, who has steered about $1 billion to Kentucky with earmarks, into changing his mind. The move put McConnell and the tea partiers in an unfamiliar position, one aligned with President Barack Obama. "I welcome Senator McConnell's decision to join me and members of both parties who support ...
Americans Best Brits on Lifespan, But Suffer More Illness
By Katie Drummond - AOL News(Nov. 4) -- Americans can expect to outlive their British peers, but not without suffering chronic ailments to a greater extent than those living across the Atlantic. A collaborative effort between U.S.-based Rand Corp and Britain's Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has reached that conclusion, after evaluating data on Americans and Brits aged 50 and older. "If you get sick at older ages, you will die sooner in England than in the United States," James Smith, who co-authored the study, told Reuters. How did researchers draw their country-vs.-country conclusions? They analyzed a massive ...
Obama Kicks Off Tour Touting Health Care Reform, Vows to Fight Oppostion, Scammers
By Katie Drummond - Politics DailyIn the first of a series of planned stops to promote his new health care reform package -- narrowly passed last year by the House of Representatives -- President Obama vowed to "move forward" while fighting back against Republican efforts to stymie the legislation. In an event that was broadcast on C-SPAN, Obama spoke to a town hall meeting of senior citizens in Wheaton, Md. It was the first such meeting in what's expected to be a lengthy promotional tour for the President, focused on major voting blocs. Obama used the town hall to talk-up the perks that the elderly will enjoy under the new ...
Opinion: Uncle Sam, MD?
By not in system - AOL News(April 10) -- Now that health care reform is the law of the land, state governments will have to start looking for serious ways to control health costs. And one tempting target will be prescription drugs, which account for an increasing share of the nation's health tab. But one cost-cutting idea bandied about would put patients' care at risk and could easily end up costing more money than it saves. It's called "therapeutic substitution," and several states already use it in an attempt to cut costs in their Medicaid programs. Therapeutic substitution is a practice in which a pharmacist swaps ...
Nelson Says He'll Now Support Health Care Bill
By not in system - AOL News(Dec. 19) -- Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced Saturday in the Capitol that he will vote for health care reform -- and Nelson's announcement virtually assures passage of the Democrats' sweeping health care reform bill. "I believe this legislation will stand the test of time and will be noted as one of the major reforms of the 21s century," Nelson said. "Lives will be saved and our health care system will reflect the better nature of our country." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid revealed the final package of changes to the bill, known as the managers' amendment, on Saturday morning. ...
America's Health Care Compares Poorly
By Joseph Schuman - AOL News(Dec. 8) -- Fewer doctors, shorter lives, but at least it's expensive. That's how the U.S. health care system compares with those in most other major economies, according to the latest number-crunching released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The comparison from the OECD, the Paris-based economic think tank for the United States and 29 other countries, may tell Americans little about themselves they haven't already heard in a year when health care is the No. 1 issue in Washington. But it does add global context to the public debate. So here are five key ...
Medicaid: Struggling States Need More Help From the Feds
By Lou Cannon - Politics DailyTucked away in an inner passage of the 1,990-page health care bill passed by the House is a $23.5 billion holiday season gift to states to help them meet the growing costs of Medicaid, which provides medical coverage for the poor. This little-noticed provision is in reality a hidden federal stimulus, much welcome to states, as they confront the looming budget gaps of 2010 and beyond. State governments are less happy with other provisions of the bill, but they will take what they can get from Washington as revenues fall in tandem with rising joblessness. Even though the Great Recession is ...
Sen. Stabenow's Zinger on Health Care
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyA little advice to any insurance agents out there trying to lure Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) away from the government-subsidized congressional health plan to a private plan: Don't pitch him anything that includes prenatal coverage -- Sen. Kyl won't be requiring it. As David Sessions wrote, in a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee Friday, Sen. Kyl criticized legislation that would bar insurance companies from excluding some benefits. After Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) complained that 60 percent of health insurance companies refuse to cover prenatal care, Sen. Kyl responded: "First of ...
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