Democrats Challenging Administration on Medicaid
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — In an unusual break with the White House, the Democratic leaders of Congress told theSupreme Court on Monday that President Obama was pursuing a misguided interpretation of federalMedicaid law that made it more difficult for low-income people to obtain health care.
The Democratic leaders said Medicaid beneficiaries must be allowed to file suit to enforce their right to care — and to challenge Medicaid cuts being made by states around the country.
Partners enters pact to acquire nonprofit insurer
Deal requires state, US approvals
Letting Doctors Make the Tough Decisions
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.Seth Resnick/Getty Images
Soon after I finished my surgical training, I worked with a young doctor who was impressive not only for his clinical skills but also for his devotion to patients. He was large and powerfully built but never seemed to loom over his patients, miraculously shrinking down to their eye level whenever he spoke with them. He listened intently to every detail of their travails and always ended the visits by asking if they still had any unanswered questions.
One afternoon I was surprised to see him at a nursing station, his massive arms gesticulating as he complained to a nurse about one patient’s family. The patient was dying, and the young doctor had organized a meeting with the family to talk about withdrawing life-support machines and medications and starting comfort measures. The family had spent the entire meeting asking questions but then refused to make any decisions or withdraw any treatments.
A Scalpel, Not an Ax, for Medicaid
Many states are struggling to balance their budgets by curbing spending on Medicaid, a joint state-federal program that provides health insurance for the poor and disabled. They have little choice because Medicaid is one of their biggest, fastest-growing expenses. The risk is that injudicious cuts could harm their most vulnerable citizens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/opinion/a-scalpel-not-an-ax-for-medicaid.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Editorial: If U.S. is serious about debt, there's a single-payer solution.
By the Editorial Board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Posted: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 12:00 amIf America truly is serious about dealing with its deficit problems, there's a fairly simple solution. But you're probably not going to like it: Enact a single-payer health care plan.
See, we told you weren't going to like it.
But the fact is that everyone who has studied the deficit problem has agreed that it's actually a health care problem — more specifically, the cost of providing Medicare benefits to an aging and longer-living population. The bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform reported last December: "The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects if we continue on our current course, deficits will remain high throughout the rest of this decade and beyond, and debt will spiral ever higher, reaching 90 percent of GDP in 2020.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_97afa329-42f8-5f12-adb0-97fa305c3e4b.html?print=1
Deal in Place for Inspecting Foreign Drugs
By GARDINER HARRIS
More than 80 percent of the active ingredients for drugs sold in the United States are made abroad, mostly in a shadowy network of facilities in China and India that are rarely visited by government inspectors, who sometimes cannot even find the plants.
But after decades of failed attempts, the federal government and the generic drug industry have reached an agreement that is almost certain to pass Congress and that will lead to routine inspections of these overseas plants, potentially transforming the enormous global medicine trade.
Health Law Is Dealt Blow by a Court on Mandate
By MICHAEL COOPER
The provision in President Obama’s health care law requiring Americans to buy health insurance or face tax penalties was ruled unconstitutional on Friday by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.
It was the first appellate review to find the provision unconstitutional — a previous federal appeals court upheld the law — and some lawyers said that the decision made it more likely that the fate of the health care law would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
Appeals court strikes down health-care law’s insurance mandate
By N.C. Aizenman and Robert Barnes,
A federal appeals court struck down a central provision of the 2010 health-care law Friday, ruling that Congress overstepped its authority by requiring virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance.
The divided three-judge panel from the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta is the first appellate court to rule against any portion of the statute. The decision marks a significant victory for the 26 Republican attorneys general and governors who challenged the health-care law on behalf of their states.
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