All Articles In 'Health Care Policy'
Health Care Spending and Hypertension: The Cost of High Blood Pressure
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is related to several major chronic diseases. Obesity and diabetes raise your chance of developing high blood pressure, which in turn makes you more likely to suffer from heart disease and [...]
Medicare Hospital Payment: MedPAC Recommends One Percent Rate Increase for FY 2014
Hospitals face another year of tight Medicare reimbursement, with rates for FY 2014 falling farther behind cost increases and margins declining as a result. Most hospitals already lose money on caring for Medicare and Medicaid patients. [...]
Health Care Costs: Slowdown in Growth is Because of Economy, Not Obamacare
Growth in health care spending has slowed recently. Why? Supporters of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – aka Obamacare – says its due to the controversial law, although most of the ACA’s provisions are yet to [...]
Medicare and Medicaid Spending on Dual Eligible Populations: Analysis of Health Costs
Much of the story about rising health costs and spending has to do with relatively small groups of people with expensive health needs. For example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates Medicare beneficiaries [...]
Medicare Physician Sustainable Growth Rate: Repealing SGR
For over a decade, the sustainable growth rate (SGR) has been a source of financial worry for physicians who serve Medicare patients. Medicare’s physician payment rate is based on a composite measure of the cost of [...]
Medicare Payment Reform: Post-Acute Provider Reimbursement
The term “post-acute care” (PAC) covers a range of services patients receive after a hospital stay. Skilled nursing facilities, home health care agencies, long-term care hospitals, and inpatient rehabilitation hospitals all provide post-acute care. PAC providers [...]
Medicaid Expansion Through Health Insurance Marketplaces: Unresolved Questions
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has answered some questions about how Arkansas’s creative plan to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The plan, which Gov. Mike Beebe put forward, would use [...]
Dual Eligibles and Medicare Cost Sharing: State Medicaid Payment of Medicare Premiums, Deductibles, and Co-Payments
State Medicaid programs will spend about $175 billion this year on health care for dual eligibles – low-income seniors and persons with disabilities who receive benefits from both Medicare and Medicaid. State spending on dual eligibles [...]
Congress and Social Media: Use of Twitter and Facebook by Senators and Congressmen
The rise of social media has undeniably changed the way we communicate, conduct business, and go about our daily lives. Social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and YouTube offer rapid, easy, and efficient ways [...]
Employer Mandate and Penalties Under the Affordable Care Act: Understanding the New $130 Billion Tax
Under the new employer mandate imposed by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), employers will pay about $130 billion in penalties over the next 10 years. The ACA employer mandate is highly complex and employers have many [...]
Stay Connected
Managing Editor
