Medicare

The House is scheduled to vote Wednesday on competing budget proposals, setting up a protracted debate over Medicare and other entitlement programs. The House will vote on several alternative budgets as it moves toward a vote on Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) controversial proposal — including a more conservative GOP proposal that borrows Ryan's Medicare plan but implements it more quickly.

The battle lines were already clear as lawmakers debated a procedural motion allowing them to move on to the budget votes.

"The majority has made clear that their vision for America is a vision that says the nation can no longer care for our seniors, that we must halt vital scientific research, and that we should let our bridges and schools crumble because we cannot afford to invest in the future," Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said.

The House will also vote on a Democratic budget that doesn't include any entitlement cuts, but instead aims to reduce the deficit mostly with new taxes. 

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), are stepping up their calls for President Obama to join them in pursuing uncontroversial entitlement reforms. The new push on entitlements comes as the Senate gets closer to its own budget votes — Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday threatened to keep members in town over the weekend if they can't come to an agreement earlier.

Patient groups and conservative activists pushed back Tuesday against renewed calls for Medicare to negotiate the prices it pays for prescription drugs.

More than 330 patient groups, most of them state-based, wrote to lawmakers to oppose price negotiations in Medicare's drug benefit.

"We question the wisdom of requiring the Secretary to negotiate drug prices in a program that works well, continues to be significantly under budget forecasts, and that seniors and disabled individuals know and trust to meet their needs," the groups wrote.

A bill from Reps. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) would cap the number of document requests possible during audits of Medicare providers suspected of improper payments.

Graves and Schiff reintroduced the Medicare Audit Improvement Act on Tuesday, citing the challenges for hospitals buried in requests from investigators known as Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs).

"Doctors and nurses should be focused on caring for patients, not trying to comply with the ever-increasing requests for documents," Graves said in a statement. 

Only six percent of U.S. workers are very confident that future Medicare benefits will be equal in value to what seniors receive today, according to a new survey.

The annual "Retirement Confidence Survey" from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) revealed growing anxiety among workers about their ability to retire in good financial stead.

The number of people who say they will work past 65 is up to 36 percent, more than tripling since the early 1990s, EBRI reported. 

Read more...

The insurance industry launched another salvo Monday in its aggressive lobbying campaign to beat back proposed Medicare Advantage cuts. America's Health Insurance Plans launched a second TV ad focusing on the cuts, this time featuring seniors talking into the camera about their reliance on the plans.

The latest ad comes just two weeks before the Medicare agency will announce final payment rates for Medicare Advantage plans, after proposing a 2.2 percent cut last month. The problem, according to industry, isn't just the 2 percent reduction, but that it would come on top of bigger cuts included in the Affordable Care Act.

Also on Monday, AHIP garnered more support from Capitol Hill in its fight against the cuts. The group released a letter from 22 senators, including both Republicans and Democrats, urging the Medicare agency to revisit its proposal. More than 100 lawmakers have already signed similar letters.

Healthwatch has more details on the latest TV ads.

SCOTUS tackles drug lawsuits: The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday morning in a case that asks whether people have the right to sue over certain side effects from prescription drugs. The justices will consider whether patients harmed by a generic drug have the right to sue on the grounds that the product was so dangerous it never should have been marketed. Those suits are rare, but trial lawyers say they're the last line of defense against dangerous drugs. 

The insurance industry launched a second television ad Monday against proposed cuts to private Medicare Advantage plans.

The latest ad features seniors talking into the camera about the "drastic" consequences of losing access to their Medicare Advantage plans. 

"If Medicare Advantage has some cuts to it, I'm going to be in bad shape financially," one man says in the new ad, which began airing in Washington, D.C. on Monday and will air in Louisiana on Tuesday.

Republicans act with the air, if not a vote, of confidence

Durbin hits Ryan budget, eyes Medicare reform

Despite evidence, parents' fears of HPV vaccine grow

Read more...

Debate over the parties’ budgets will escalate this week as the two bills hit the House and Senate floors. 

A bipartisan group of 95 lawmakers pressed the Medicare agency Friday to abandon steep cuts to private Medicare Advantage plans.

The insurance industry has pulled out all the stops as it tries to fend off the proposed cuts, and Friday's letter from members of Congress is the biggest show of support yet from Capitol Hill.

The lawmakers urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reconsider a proposed 2.2 percent cut in Medicare Advantage payments — a cut that would come on top of payment reductions in President Obama's healthcare law.

Advocates are welcoming a bill that would clarify Medicare's policy on hospital observation stays — rules that currently leave some seniors without coverage for subsequent nursing-home care.

The measure from Reps. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Tom Latham (R-Iowa) would count observation stays toward the requirement that patients spend three days in the hospital to trigger follow-up coverage in skilled nursing facilities.

The bill, introduced Thursday, received praise from the American Health Care Association and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM).