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CHA has submitted comments to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on its proposed rule implementing the Veterans Community Care Program, which will replace the Veterans Choice Program as required by the MISSON Act of 2018.
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The patient appeared to be dying. She had chronic lung disease, and she had been told she had little reserve left and had barely survived on home oxygen for the past few years. Each time she picked up a lung infection, the buzzards circled closer. Now she had tripped, fallen, broken a bone, had surgery, and her subsequent infection seemed to have pushed her past the point of no return. Still, I held off the palliative care/comfort care team for as long as I could, and she rallied. Everyone saw how tough she was and a fighter and praised my intervention, but it just wasn’t enough in the end and she died.
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Earlier this week, CHA sent an Advocacy Alert to hospital leaders about Senate Bill 227 (Leyva, D-Chino), a bill that would create significant penalties for hospitals that do not meet nurse staffing ratios. CHA urges hospital leaders to contact their representatives about this harmful bill, which would increase costs without providing any benefit to patients.
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Both the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) and the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) have issued their March 2019 reports to Congress, based on recommendations approved at their January meetings. The MedPAC report evaluates Medicare payment issues, while the MACPAC report recommends — among other items — that if planned Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) cuts proceed, they should be phased-in to give states and hospitals more time to respond.
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CHA will host a Lobby Action Day on April 2 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to provide members an opportunity to share their support for Senate Bill 758 (Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge), a bill that will be amended to give hospitals the flexibility they need to tailor post-disaster care to meet the unique needs of their communities.
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We’re now in the silly season of the Democratic primary — a season that, I worry, may last all the way to the nomination. There are many honorable exceptions, but an awful lot of reporting seems to be third order — not about the candidates, let alone their policy proposals, but about pundits’ views about voters’ views of candidates’ electability.
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Over the past few decades, healthcare economists have offered four distinct ways to reduce system costs: eliminate unnecessary use; lower prices; reduce administrative overhead; and foster a healthier society.
The latter approach—addressing the root causes of ill health or what healthcare wonks call the social determinants of health—draws the least attention for a simple reason. It’s hard to do.
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Something quite remarkable is happening right now among Democrats on the issue of health care: After an intense period in which rhetoric, policy and politics were all seemingly in flux, the party is rapidly moving toward something like consensus on where it ought to go next on its most critical domestic priority.
As you may know, almost every Democrat running for president has said he or she supports Medicare-for-all, but most of them (with the exception of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been proposing a single-payer plan for years) have been vague about what that might mean.
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A class action legal ruling this month, on a case originally filed in 2014, found that UnitedHealthCare’s (UHC) mental health subsidiary, United Behavioral Health (UBH), established internal policies that discriminated against patients with behavioral health or substance abuse conditions. While an appeal is expected, patients with legitimate claims were systematically denied coverage, and employer/union purchasers who had paid for coverage for their employees and their family members received diminished or no value for their investments.
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CHA sent a letter to the California congressional delegation this week, urging support of the Resident Physician Shortage Act of 2019 (H.R. 1763), which takes steps to reduce nationwide physician shortages by increasing the number of Medicare-supported residency positions.