Word: health
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...original Finance Committee bill would have triggered the commission's recommendations whenever the rate of increase in Medicare spending outpaced overall economic growth - something that happens almost every year. But the current version would allow it to make recommendations only when Medicare spending per capita grows faster than overall health costs. That almost never occurs. The change in economic measuring sounds technical. In effect, however, it "turns off the commission" before it even begins, says a senior congressional aide...
...device makers - all of which have a financial stake in the results of comparative-effectiveness research - hold seats on the governing board of the new agency in charge of it. The potential for conflict of interest has raised alarms among some in the research community. But Obama's top health adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle, contends that it's a sign that some of comparative effectiveness's most ardent foes have come around to the idea that technologies and treatments have to prove themselves. "Ten years ago, most of the industry was dead set against this," she says. "Now they...
...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...
...would be 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...
...Pilot Projects The legislation in Congress is chock-full of pilot projects designed to test out ideas for lowering costs. But critics contend that such projects work to preserve the status quo. "We don't need pilots. We have enough information," says Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the health policy department at Emory University. "Let's go ahead and get on with this...