State issues

Records suggest Haley decided the study's conclusion — for which the state received a $1M grant — before it began.

A panel charged with keeping Massachusetts healthcare costs under control is recommending price controls on hospitals and other medical providers, State House News Service reports.

The commission recommends that hospitals be required to justify "above-norm" health prices in front of a panel of state healthcare finance officials if insurers refuse to pay them. The panel would be empowered to force insurers to accept a hospital's price or require hospitals to take a lower price.

The embattled insurance industry is touting the recommendation as an implicit acknowledgment that caps on insurance rates aren't succeeding in lowering healthcare costs. Massachusetts has some of the nation's strongest rate review powers; last year, Gov. Deval Patrick's administration rejected almost nine out of 10 rate increase requests.

The recommendation passed 9-1. The president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association voted against it, State House News Service reported, calling it an "extreme and administratively burdensome step" that would give the government power over the private healthcare sector that it "cannot exercise effectively or fairly."

North Dakota could vote this week to create a health insurance exchange, reports the Grand Forks Herald.

More than half the states have cut their mental health budgets since the recession started, Kaiser Health News reports.

The committee charged with studying rising healthcare costs in Massachusetts wants to create an oversight panel to identify acceptable and unacceptable reasons for price variations among doctors and hospitals, the Boston Globe reports.

British American Tobacco said it will sue to repeal an Australian law that bans logos on cigarette packaging, Bloomberg reports.

More than a dozen House Democrats from California met recently with Medicaid boss Donald Berwick to warn him that Gov. Jerry Brown's request for deep cuts to the state/federal program would devastate healthcare providers and their patients, The Hill has learned.

Brown, a Democrat, has put the Obama administration in a tough spot with his request to cut the state's Medicaid program by $1.4 billion to help plug a $26.6 billion budget gap. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) called the proposed cuts "untenable."

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) urged Berwick to reject some of the cuts back in July, but last month's meeting demonstrates that other California Democrats also have concerns.

Staffers briefed about the meeting said Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials were urged to require that California demonstrate that beneficiaries will still have access to care if the cuts go through, as required by law.

Insurers and businesses aren't overly impressed by Florida's health exchange, Kaiser Health News reports.

Stateline reviews the impact on states of President Obama's proposed limits of Medicaid provider taxes.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate stockpiling of scarce cancer and heart disease medications as possible price gouging, the New York Daily News reports. 

President Obama has broken his promise to double cancer research funding, PolitiFact writes.

Emergency physicians filed suit Friday to block the state of Washington's plans to limit Medicaid beneficiaries to three "non-emergency" visits to emergency departments per year.

Like other states, cash-strapped Washington is seeking ways to keep its exploding Medicaid costs under control. Physicians, however, say the new restrictions that are slated to kick in Saturday would harm patients by categorizing more than 700 diagnoses — including chest pain, abdominal pain, miscarriage and breathing problems — as "non-emergent." 

"This list of non-emergent diagnoses puts patients in danger and unfairly targets the poor and those in most need of care," Stephen Anderson, president of the Washington Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said in a statement. "We understand that our state Medicaid office is working with 19 other states to develop this policy. If this plan goes into effect, other states will certainly follow suit."

The suit in particular argues that the state didn't seek stakeholder comments before forcing its plan on hospitals and other providers and failed to meet requirements set forth by the State Legislature.

The California state Senate has shelved legislation requiring the state to regulate health insurance rates, the Los Angeles Times is reporting. 

This is the fourth time in four years that Democratic legislation to give regulators more power has died amid strong opposition from insurers and providers who say the bill could lead to artificially low rates. The bill got an extra boost earlier this year when Blue Shield of California proposed raising some individual plan rates by as much as 59 percent, but it still couldn’t muster the needed votes in the Senate.

The federal healthcare law requires insurers to publicly justify rate increases of 10 percent or more starting Sept. 1, but it does not give regulators the power to reject so-called “unreasonable” rate hikes.

Consumer Watchdog is fighting to put a referendum on a public option on California's 2012 ballot, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Kaiser Health News compiles a handy chart on where the Republican presidential hopefuls stand on an array of healthcare issues.

Peter Lee, deputy director for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, has been tapped to lead California's health exchange, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.

Republican governors are split on how to deal with the healthcare reform law's insurance exchanges, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A new study in the British medical journal The Lancet predicts that half of American adults will be obese by 2030 based on current trends, The Washington Post reports. 

New York is demanding that nonprofits — including hospitals, Medicaid providers and social service agencies — report their executives' compensation, reports Modern Healthcare.

Advocates say Medicaid cuts would be particularly harmful to people with disabilities, who would lose access to critical services.

Gov. Brown asked federal regulators for permission to cut the program by $1.4 billion to help California plug a budget gap.