Health reform implementation

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) stressed that congressional Republicans have "got a chance to repeal" the healthcare law.

“If I had seen the memo, I would have suggested it be worded differently,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said.

Marking the end of a busy year in healthcare, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius touted her department's accomplishments over the past 12 months in a video message released Thursday afternoon.

For Sebelius, identifying the top accomplishment was a no-brainer: implementation of the sweeping healthcare reform law.

"Through the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, more Americans have access to health coverage as well as new rights and benefits in their health insurance," Sebelius said in a statement.

Other accomplishments in what she called a "banner" year include: fighting obesity through first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign; reducing Medicare fraud, waste and abuse; lowering tobacco use; expanding health information technology; and providing support to Haiti and the Gulf.

An anti-tobacco group is hitting back against a federal judge’s recent decision to block New York City from launching a massive anti-tobacco campaign featuring graphic images.

The campaign, struck down Wednesday, would have required New York City convenience stores to post gruesome images of a brain damaged by stroke, a diseased lung, or decaying teeth and gums as a warning of tobacco’s dangers.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that the city’s regulation was preempted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 2009, which prescribes federal guidelines for tobacco advertising.

“An otherwise laudable New York City health regulation designed to alert cigarette purchasers, at the very point of purchase, to the grave dangers of tobacco use must be declared invalid because it imposes burdens on the promotion of cigarettes that only the federal government may prescribe,” Rakoff wrote.

The plaintiffs in the case included the nation’s three largest tobacco manufacturers, as well as two trade associations representing city tobacco retailers.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said Thursday the city's anti-smoking campaign is within legal rights, arguing that the city’s requirement regulates the sale — and not the promotion — of tobacco products.

“We believe that New York City acted appropriately and within its legal authority to regulate the sale of tobacco products in requiring tobacco sellers to post the warning signs,” campaign president Matthew Myers said in a statement. “The court was in error when it failed to address the authority of state and local governments to regulate the sale of tobacco products that was explicitly protected in the new tobacco regulation law.”

The city will consider its legal options, a city attorney told The Associated Press. Before Rakoff’s ruling, the regulation was scheduled to go into effect on Saturday.

Republicans are preparing an array of budgetary, legislative and political strategies to fight regulatory action by President Obama.

Charles Krauthammer, a leading conservative voice, said House Republicans should keep their hands off the healthcare reform law to avoid blame for what he thinks will be the law’s inevitable failure.

Realizing that a Democratic Senate and president will make their wish to repeal the entire reform law impossible, House Republicans have said they will defund the law over the next two years. However, Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist and Fox News contributor who opposes the reform law, said the defunding strategy will result in a “clumsily enacted” law, providing Democrats the opportunity to blame Republicans if it fails. 

“In the end, if healthcare collapses or if it becomes utterly unworkable, the Democrats will have a way of saying, ‘Well, it was all these injuries inflicted by the Republicans that made it not work,’ " he said on Fox News Monday.

Instead, Krauthammer urged House Republicans to use their new subpoena power to expose flaws in the law. Republicans have been eager to grill Medicare chief Donald Berwick, who was appointed in July without Senate confirmation.

“I think through hearings ... you will expose that in a better way,” Krauthammer said. “Whereas, if you try to take away the funds, in the end, you’re not going to succeed, but you may end up as the fall guy."

But Rep. Rob Andrews said that'd happen only if CBO changed its opinion that the bill cuts the deficit.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Wednesday afternoon the creation of a new office to coordinate care for millions of individuals simultaneously enrolled in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The new healthcare reform law authorized a new office to oversee so-called "dual eligibles," which include some of the most expensive patient populations to care for. Dual eligibles - basically the low-income elderly - account for roughly 25 to 45 percent of spending in Medicare and Medicaid, respectively, but they make up less than 20 percent of enrollment for either program.

According to the CMS announcement, the new Federal Coordinated Health Care Office (CHCO) will focus on:

• Fostering overall improvements in the quality of healthcare and long-term services for individuals who are dually eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare;

• Simplifying processes for dual eligible individuals to access items and services available to them;

• Increasing dual eligible individuals’ understanding of and satisfaction with coverage under the Medicare and Medicaid programs;

• Eliminating regulatory conflicts between rules under the Medicare and Medicaid programs; and

• Improving coordination between the federal government and the states.

The CHCO will be led by Melanie Bella, who was previously senior vice president for policy and operations at the Center for Health Care Strategies.

Key parts of the new healthcare law will go into effect on Jan. 1, just before the Republican-controlled House returns to Washington. 

The GOP changed House rules to make it easier to repeal healthcare; Dems think they now have a potent argument.