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Healthcare Thursday
ON POLITICS:
— Democrats hoping to provide states with more emergency Medicaid dollars next year are trying to win the support of Sen. Susan Collins, the centrist Maine Republican who supports the concept, but has yet to endorse the Democrats’ revised proposal. (Indeed, she recently rejected the tax extenders bill that contained such a provision.)
This week, Collins’s office explained that the senator still supports the funding extension, but can’t endorse offsets “that would increase payroll taxes on small businesses and make retroactive some taxes on businesses, providing strong disincentives for employers to preserve and create jobs.”
“She believes retroactivity is extraordinarily unfair tax policy,” a spokesman said. “Congress should aim to ensure the cost of extending the enhanced [Medicaid] rate is largely offset and would not contribute to our country’s fiscal problems.”
Not that Collins thinks all emergency spending needs to be offset. On Wednesday, she voted in favor of a $34 billion extension of unemployment benefits, none of it paid for.
WHERE’S THE WHITE HOUSE?
— At Health and Human Services, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will sit down Thursday morning with leaders from MomsRising, an advocate for family security, to answer questions about health reform implementation. Cancer survivor and “Nanny” actress Fran Drescher will join along.
— Later in the day, HHS leaders will issue new rules making it easier for patients to appeal health insurance denials, the latest in a long string of efforts to remind the public of the consumer benefits created by the controversial health reform law. Heading the call will be Jay Angoff, HHS’s director of consumer information and insurance oversight.
NEWS:
— Workers on the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig feared they would be punished if they reported safety hazards, according to a confidential survey conducted by the rig operator, Transocean, and obtained by the New York Times. “Some workers also voiced concerns about poor equipment reliability, ‘which they believed was as a result of drilling priorities taking precedence over planned maintenance,’” the Times writes.
The report arrives the same day that Steve Flynn, BP’s vice president of health, safety, security and environment, will testify before a labor subpanal of the Senate HELP Committee. Though this marks the second time Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) will examine offshore worker safety since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in April, it’s the first time a representative of BP will appear.
— Eight days of digestion later, the American Medical Association (AMA) on Wednesday reacted to CMS’s new (and final) “meaningful use” rules governing providers who hope to tap generous incentive payments for adopting health information systems. While the doctors group notes “an improvement over previous drafts,” it’s also warning that the 20 measures CMS is requiring physicians to report in the first year will be overly burdensome, particularly for those practicing alone or in small groups.
— Consumers Union is going after the Blues for hoarding billions of dollars in cash reserves while simultaneously hitting customers with double-digit rate hikes, USA Today reports.
CALENDAR:
— Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will tackle comparative effective research at a Thursday morning healthcare forum sponsored by the Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC). Also speaking will be Tony Coelho, the former California congressman who now chairs the PIPC; Joyce Dubow, director of healthcare reform at AARP; and Jennifer Luray, a vice president of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a cancer group.
— Don Blankenship, the head of the Appalachian coal giant Massey Energy, will speak at the National Press Club this afternoon. The company, and its pugnacious CEO, have come under fire since April, when an enormous explosion at a Massey mine in southern West Virginia killed 29 workers and maimed a 30th. Massey workers — at that project and others — have said the company systematically ignores worker safety rules in order to harvest coal more efficiently.
Blankenship’s appearance comes just one day after a House panel approved legislation bolstering federal mine safety rules in response to the West Virginia disaster.
— The House Veterans Affairs Health Subcommittee meets Thursday morning to examine the challenges posed in treating the physical injuries of war.
— The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight subpanel will gather to examine direct-to-consumer genetic testing.
— The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration meets to discus strategies for improving the delivery of medical help during catastrophes.
— House Democrats will host an afternoon news conference to mark the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
