Word: careful
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Human Services Secretary more authority than she has now to put some pilot programs into effect, the Senate is already putting the brakes on some of the more innovative ideas. Under its version of the bill, three of the pilot programs that have the most potential to transform health care would require congressional approval before the Secretary could apply them to Medicare nationally. The first is known as "accountable care organizations," an arrangement in which hospitals, primary-care doctors and potentially other medical professionals would have to coordinate care for their shared Medicare patients. All would be held accountable...
...recommendation by a government-appointed expert panel that most women delay routine mammograms until age 50. As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius furiously tried to distance the Administration from the recommendation, a chorus of critics declared it a harbinger of exactly the type of bureaucratic health care apportioning they fear most. Any similarly controversial recommendation based on comparative-effectiveness research would almost certainly be neutered by Congress...
...Medicare Commission When Obama began his push for reform, he asked Congress to create an independent commission to regulate Medicare costs. Medicare, which spends more than $450 billion a year, is such a huge health care player that any changes it makes can lead the way for reforms in the private market. As originally envisioned, the new agency would essentially take over Congress's current authority to set Medicare payment rates for hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and other health care providers. It would use a process like the military-base-closing commission, whose recommendations automatically go into effect unless Congress...
...beyond its reach entirely. Who is left? Maybe no one. "The exception for hospitals and other providers is fundamentally counter to the goals of the original bill, and I will work to see that it is removed," says Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Finance Committee's health care subcommittee and an original proponent of the idea. "A watered-down approach to fixing Medicare simply will not work...
...those concepts would break the traditional fee-for-service model, in which the more treatment doctors and hospitals give, the more they get paid - regardless of whether what they are doing is necessary or even beneficial for the patient. And each is likely to draw heavy flak from health care providers who see their autonomy - and their incomes - in jeopardy...