The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is set to release two reports Tuesday that will add more fuel to the debate over healthcare reform's impact on businesses.

The debate over employer-based coverage has been raging for two weeks — ever since the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. released a survey that said 30 percent of businesses are likely to quit offering coverage because of healthcare reform. Under pressure from congressional Democrats, McKinsey released the methodology behind that study on Monday, along with an explanation that said the report wasn't trying to make predictions about the future of employer-based coverage.

Healthwatch has more on the McKinsey release.

Also on Monday, Avalere Health released a report that says the new law will probably have a modest impact on employer-based insurance. Healthwatch has the details.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's reports are expected to document a decade-long erosion of employer-based coverage and argue that the healthcare reform law can help reverse the trend.

Docs back mandate: The American Medical Association voted overwhelmingly to maintain its support for an individual coverage mandate — among the most controversial pieces of the new healthcare law.

The vote, which wasn't as close as some observers were expecting, followed two days of debate over the mandate. Read the Healthwatch story.

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The American Medical Association voted Monday to maintain its support for a controversial piece of healthcare reform.
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The consulting firm McKinsey says it didn't intend to make economic predictions in its controversial report that said 30 percent of businesses will likely drop their health benefits because of healthcare reform.

Following weeks of criticism and public pressure from Democrats, McKinsey released details about the survey on Monday. The firm said it stands by its survey as well as its findings — but it also sought to reframe the study, saying it was simply a measure of employers' attitudes.

"The survey was not intended as a predictive economic analysis of the impact of the Affordable Care Act," McKinsey said in a statement. "Rather, it captured the attitudes of employers and provided an understanding of the factors that could influence decision making related to employee health benefits."

Republicans leapt at McKinsey's initial findings, which said new mandates under healthcare reform would lead 30 percent of businesses to drop their coverage. But Democrats immediately raised questions about the survey's reliability, and have pressed McKinsey to release its methodology.

The firm released its survey questions, as well as the responses, on Monday.

Debate over how many people will lose their employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) coverage due to Democrats' healthcare law continued to rage Monday as another consulting firm predicted a limited impact.

The new study by Avalere assessed several models and other analyses that have examined the issue and concluded that most of them anticipate a limited impact. The study comes two weeks after McKinsey estimated that 30 percent or more of employers can be expected to drop their coverage starting in 2014 as employees become eligible for subsidies to buy coverage on their own.

"Overall, our analysis suggests that the ESI market will be fairly stable after 2014 when key [healthcare law] coverage provisions go into effect," the Avalere report states.

More than 5 million people have taken advantage of a provision in healthcare reform that offers free preventive care, the Medicare agency said Monday.

The new healthcare law allows Medicare recipients to access several preventive services without a copay. Roughly 5.5 million beneficiaries have used the new benefit, mostly for mammograms, bone density tests and screenings for prostate cancer, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The agency also unveiled a new public service announcement designed to increase awareness of the new benefit.

Companies that make over-the-counter drugs released new data Monday arguing that the products could save consumers $5 billion per year and avoid unnecessary visits to doctors’ offices.

The healthcare law includes some restrictions on the purchase of over-the-counter drugs, and those limits have become a repeal target for some congressional Republicans.

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) said greater use of over-the-counter medicines could eliminate more than 26 million doctors’ visits every year, for annual savings of more than $5 billion. 

The Food and Drug Administration warned Monday that the explosion of products, manufacturers and countries involved in FDA-regulated markets has created a "perfect storm" for the agency and called for a "dramatic change in strategy."

To ensure the safety of both foreign-made final products as well as the imported materials and ingredients U.S. manufacturers rely on, the FDA unveiled a "Pathway to Global Product Safety and Quality."  It focuses on four key elements: 

• Promoting international partnerships to create global coalitions of regulators;

• Sharing data and regulatory resources across world markets;

• Focusing on risk analytics and information technology; and 

• Leveraging the efforts of the public and private sectors and allocating FDA resources based on risk. Read more...

The Susan B. Anthony List is taking presidential candidate Mitt Romney to task for his refusal to sign its anti-abortion pledge.

The future of Medicare and Medicaid will be a hot topic as negotiations on the debt ceiling continue this week