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LePage wants more funding, flexibility before expanding Medicaid
Posted March 20, 2013, at 1:32 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage’s administration is seeking additional federal funds and Medicaid flexibility as a condition for Maine to participate in an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act.
In a letter sent Monday to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Maine Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew asked the federal government to cover 100 percent of expansion costs for a decade and requested additional flexibility in the way Maine operates its Medicaid program.
Meanwhile, a Democratic representative from Gorham on Wednesday introduced legislation that would sign Maine up to accept the federal Medicaid expansion funds. Rep. Linda Sanborn, who was joined at a news conference by other Democratic legislators and doctors from the Maine Medical Association and the Maine Osteopathic Association, said the move would save Maine money in the long run while providing more residents with health insurance.
Mayhew’s letter came a week after the LePage administration and federal officials began talks about a potential expansion of Maine’s Medicaid program. LePage, a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act, had remained opposed to the expansion but began conversations with officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after eight other Republican governors endorsed Medicaid expansions in their states despite their opposition to the federal health care law.
Under the health care law, the federal government covers 100 percent of Medicaid expansion costs for newly eligible residents for three years. After that, the federal share gradually drops to 90 percent in 2020 and the states pick up the remaining share. Maine is asking the federal government to cover 100 percent of costs for 10, rather than three, years.
Maine is one of a handful of states that the federal government considers an “expansion state” because it broadened its Medicaid program more than a decade ago to cover many of the residents — including parents and adults without children — who would be newly eligible for Medicaid in most states under the health care law.
Mayhew told Sebelius this situation puts Maine at a disadvantage compared to other states.
Is medical device tax next piece of Obamacare to be scrapped?
The Senate voted 79-20 Thursday evening to repeal a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices, dealing a blow to one of the new taxes imposed to pay for health care reform.
The vote isn't binding -- it came on an amendment to the Senate's budget resolution, which is only a framework for future policy. But it showed there's bipartisan support for ditching this tax. Democrats in states with strong medical device industries, such as Minnesota, joined Republicans in voting to repeal it. The tax went into effect in January and already has cost companies $388 million, according to the Medical Device Manufacturers Association.
The tax is "a drain on innovation, on job creation and on our ability to provide groundbreaking medical innovations to patients," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax legislation.
That committee's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., voted against the amendment, as did Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid, D-Nev.
That means getting a binding vote to repeal the tax remains an uphill battle. Democratic leaders are hesitant to admit that any part of health care reform was a bad idea.
Report Card on Health Care Reform
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Republican leaders in Congress regularly denounce the 2010 Affordable Care Act and vow to block money to carry it out or even to repeal it. Those political attacks ignore the considerable benefits delivered to millions of people since the law’s enactment three years ago Saturday. The main elements of the law do not kick in until Jan. 1, 2014, when many millions of uninsured people will gain coverage. Yet it has already thrown a lifeline to people at high risk of losing insurance or being uninsured, including young adults and people with chronic health problems, and it has made a start toward reforming the costly, dysfunctional American health care system.
EXPANDING COVERAGE Starting in 2010, all insurers and employers that offer dependent coverage were required to offer coverage to dependent children up to age 26. An estimated 6.6 million people ages 19 through 25 have been able to stay on or join their parents’ plans as result, with more than 3 million previously uninsured young adults getting health insurance. The law requires private health insurers to provide free preventive care, without co-pays or deductibles. Some 71 million Americans have received at least one free preventive service, like a mammogram or a flu shot, and an additional 34 million older Americans got free preventive services in 2012 under Medicare.
Private insurers are now required to cover children with pre-existing conditions, which means that an estimated 17 million such children have been protected against being uninsured.
And more than 107,000 adults have enrolled in a federally run insurance plan for people with pre-existing conditions. The law also bars insurers from canceling policies on sick people; previously, 10,000 people a year had their policies rescinded.
The law appropriated $11 billion over five years to build and operate community health centers, a major factor in increasing the annual number of patients served to 21 million, a rise of 3 million from previous levels. Some $5 billion has been put into a reinsurance program that has encouraged employers to retain coverage for retirees and their families; 19 million people benefited with reduced premiums or cost-sharing.
Drugmakers cut marketing payments to Maine doctors
Pharmaceutical firms reduce fees to physicians for speaking engagements amid wider disclosure, but increase money paid for research.
By Eric Russell erussell@pressherald.com
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
Drug companies have long enlisted doctors to serve as de facto spokespeople for specific products, and have paid them handsomely to do so.
However, an increase in disclosures by some drug companies in recent years of the amount they pay doctors – disclosures that will be mandatory by next year – appears to be reducing the amount of money those companies are giving doctors in Maine.
From 2010 to 2012, the amount of money paid by drug companies to Maine doctors for speaking engagements dropped by 60 percent, according to data compiled by ProPublica, an investigative journalism website. Money paid to doctors in Maine for research, usually clinical drug trials, increased by 40 percent from 2011 to 2012.
ProPublica launched its Dollars for Docs initiative in 2010 to track the money drug companies spent to test and market their products. The database was recently updated to include disclosures for 2012, including hundreds from Maine.
The list is not comprehensive because not all drug companies are required to disclose the information yet, but it does offer a glimpse into the financial relationships and incentives between pharmaceutical companies and doctors.
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