Daily Policy Digest
Health Issues
| Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis With the advent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, perverse incentives will be set in place nationwide, says NCPA President and CEO John C. Goodman in his new book, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis... |
| Steep Rise in Health Costs Projected By 2021, health care spending is projected to be 19.6 percent of gross domestic product, up from 17.9 percent in 2010... |
| Tax Policy Meets the Affordable Care Act: The Case of the Premium Tax A new "fee" on health insurance companies under the health reform law unfairly targets these companies by failing to allow them to consider the fee to be a business expense for tax purposes... |
| Providing Improved Care Management for Medicare/Medicaid Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries Dual eligibles, those qualified for Medicare and Medicaid coverage, often fall into a fragmented care delivery system that perpetuates episodic rather than coordinated care... |
| Medicare Reimbursements and Shortages of Sterile Injectable Pharmaceuticals Increasing payments for sterile injectable pharmaceuticals by Medicare by 10 percent would decrease the average frequency of shortages by 1.2 percentage points from a mean of 16.06 percent... |
| President Obama's Medicare Fantasies Under the Trustees' alternative fiscal forecast, Medicare costs would rise to 6.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2040 and 7.8 percent in 2085... |
| How High Deductible Plans Lead to Low Health Care Spending As of January 2011, 11.4 million Americans were enrolled in consumer-directed health coverage -- a 14 percent increase over the 2010 total... |
| Big Changes in College Health Plans Under provisions of the new health care reform law, many colleges will be unable to provide affordable insurance to their students... |
| Health Reform's Tax on Medical Devices The excise tax on medical equipment and devices could reduce investment by $2 billion per year and result in the loss in expected life years of about 1 million annually... |
| Medicare and Medicaid Fraud Is Costing Taxpayers Billions Private insurers lose an estimated 1 percent to 1.5 percent to fraud compared to an estimated 10 to 15 percent for Medicaid and Medicare... |
