Be Informed

Legislative News

February 3, 2012

BIPARTISAN HEALTH IT REPORT OUTLINES PROBLEMS.

A report on health information technology from the Bipartisan Policy Center and former Senate Majority leaders Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was heavy on bipartisanship but light on new policy recommendations. The report calls for federal, state, and private insurance plans to pay doctors and hospitals for delivery of high-quality, cost-effective care instead of reimbursing them for whatever procedures they do. It’s a nice goal, but the health industry has spent years and is still struggling to figure out how exactly do that.

GOVERNMENT TELLS SUPREMES TO SPLIT HEALTH CARE LAW IN TWO.

In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court Friday, the Justice Department made recommendations on what to do if the government loses in its defense of the health care reform law's controversial individual mandate to purchase health insurance. The brief notes that government lawyers hope and expect the mandate to be upheld. But in case it’s not, they say that several insurance market regulations in the law would have to go down with the mandate. Many of its other provisions, the brief says, could be preserved. Opponents of the law want to see the whole thing rise or fall with the mandate. Several outside parties also filed briefs Friday on the so-called severability question.