Administration Halts Survey of Making Doctor Visits
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that it had shelved plans for a survey in which “mystery shoppers” posing as patients would call doctors’ offices to see how difficult it was to get appointments.
“We have determined that now is not the time to move forward with this research project,” the Department of Health and Human Services said late Tuesday.
Some hospitals back price curbs
Say temporary measures will correct market; Partners chief says changes could hurt care
Support is building among some Massachusetts hospitals for temporary government limits on health care prices, a remarkable development in an industry that has long favored letting the marketplace determine how much providers are paid for treating patients.
Top Democrats reject new plan to cut Medicare spending
Leading congressional Democrats immediately recoiled Tuesday from a new proposal to cut $600 billion in Medicare spending over the next decade — in part by raising the eligibility age.
Medicaid cuts could come from Dems | |
| Defenders of Medicaid have been fighting hard against Republican proposals to cut the program, but they’re just waking up to the threat of one proposed by the Obama administration. It’s an idea to change the way federal matching funds work and save money in the process — and it would probably do it by shifting costs to the states. If that happens, Medicaid advocates fear, the states will just pass on the cuts to providers and, ultimately, the patients. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=2E55C422-5CFE-4D52-BEF9-DBD359B8B2D6 About That McKinsey Report… The Critics Were Right (Guest Opinion)Jonathan Cohn, Senior Editor of The New Republic McKinsey and Company has finally released the details of its controversial paper on the likely effects of health care reform. And it looks like the paper's critics (including yours truly) were right to raise questions about it. Based on what the company has said, the paper offers no new reason to think Americans with employer-sponsored insurance will lose that coverage because of the Affordable Care Act. |
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