Happy
(belated) New Year! Since we last connected via Federal Fridays, the
‘fiscal cliff’ was averted, sequestration was delayed by two months, and many
eyes are now focused on the debt ceiling limit which could be hit by
mid-February. In fact, the Washington
Post reports that the U.S. will default in about five weeks. Yeah,
sorry, not all happiness and bliss in DC however at least everyone worked
together to avoid the pending disaster.
With
health reform implementation again underway full-steam ahead, we are going to
incorporate a separate section of Federal Fridays for Affordable Care Act
implementation news at the end of each Federal Fridays.
Impact
on Medical Research. Research!America in partnership with Zogby released a poll
showing that Americans are very concerned about the impact budget negotiations
may have on medical research. 55% of respondents said that the U.S. isn’t
putting enough into research.
$400
Million fund for Telemedicine. The Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) has created a $400 million ‘Healthcare
Connect Fund’ to create and expand telemedicine networks and increase
access to medical specialists.
Slowest
Rate of Medical Spending. The
Hill reports on the HHS announcement that health spending only grew by
3.9%, matching 2009 and 2010. The 3.9% is the lowest rate of growth in
the 52 years the report has been issued.
How
Charitable Giving Fares under Cliff deal. According to a study by
the Urban
Institute, they project that charitable giving will actually increase
because of the way things were structured in the law enacted by Congress to
avoid the fiscal cliff . . . I guess only time will tell, but let’s hope!
Stem Cell Case Rejected by Supreme Court. The U.S.
Supreme Court this week rejected
an effort to have a long-standing case brought before it. The suit
challenged the Obama Administration approach toward embryonic stem cell
research and with this decision, looks like researchers have a green light to
keep moving forward!
Corporation
= Person so carry papers. I know, confusing. Federal
law defines a person as a living breathing male or female, but corporation is also
defined as being a person. Well, one creative Californian decided to ‘carry
his corporation’ on the passenger seat in his car therefore having two
legal persons in the vehicle therefore qualifying to use the HOV lane. Of
course the police weren’t humored. While this story is a bit humorous, it
could have some real-life impact in terms of a possible redefinition of ‘person.’
Wanted:
Noisier Cars.
That’s right, the U.S. Department of Transportation wants electric cars to make
more noise so that pedestrians can hear them. I doubt the next-gen
electric cars will roar like a Mustang GT or anything though.
American
Dialect names words of the year. In its 23rd annual words of the
year vote, the American
Dialect Society voted "hashtag" as the word of the year for 2012.
Hashtag refers to the practice used on Twitter for marking topics or making
commentary by means of a hash symbol (#) followed by a word or phrase. The
award for the most euphemistic word of the year: "self-deportation: policy
of encouraging illegal immigrants to return voluntarily to their home
countries."
Cockroaches more popular than
Congress.
A new Public
Policy Polling survey finds that Congress only has a 9% favorability rating
with 85% of voters viewing it unfavorably. Colonoscopies, traffic jams
and that NFL replacement ref all score higher than Congress in this
survey.
$1
Trillion Coin?
Yes, it is actually being
considered and bantered about in DC. Who needs a debt ceiling limit
if you can just create more money via a trillion dollar platinum coin!?
Health
Reform Implementation News:
- More Changes Coming in 2013: Here’s a nice summary of ACA provisions scheduled to kick-in this year.
18 + 2 + 4
= a lot less than 50.
The Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight at CMS announced “conditional
approval” of 18 states’ plans to establish their own health insurance
exchanges, plus two that plan to share responsibilities in a Federal
Partnership Model. Exchange plans, approval letters and more for these 20
states have been posted. Only four other states had submitted
applications as of January 3rd and it’s doubtful that many more
applications will come in before the February 15th deadline. At this
point it seems the majority of states will, by default, participate in the
yet-to-be-established Federally Facilitated Exchange.
- Writing ‘the fine print’ Long-awaited proposed rules addressing many provisions of the ACA important to people with MS have been released in the past several weeks, including further definition of the essential health benefits, insurance “‘market reforms” and more. The good folks at the Kaiser Family Foundation boiled down hundreds of pages of legalese from three of them into this 11 page brief.
- Medicaid Expansion Tracker: The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is trying to make it easy for us to keep track of states’ progress on Medicaid expansion with the (frequently updated) map on the bottom of the first page of their report.
- Register now for January 30 webinar: This one hour webinar on ‘Health Care Reform's Impact on People with Disabilities’ scheduled for January 30 at 2:00 EST looks like a good one. Share this registration link with staff, volunteers, and/or clients that might be interested.
- 106 Accountable Care groups approved. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week approved 106 accountable care organizations/groups under the health law.
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