Word: versions
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...earlier version of this post stated incorrectly that "I want your psycho, your vertical stick" is a line from the song "Bad Romance." In fact, the line is, "I want your psycho, your vertical schtick...
This is an expanded version of an article that originally appeared in the Dec. 14, 2009, issue of TIME...
...While the legislation would give the Health and 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...
...support he needed to bring the bill to the floor of his chamber. The 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...
...turns out, however, lawmakers are reluctant to cede the power to steer extra money to hospitals in their own districts, and the House rejected the commission idea outright. While the Senate bill does contain a version of the commission, it has become weaker at every turn in the process. Under a deal to win hospitals' support for the bill, the Senate Finance Committee agreed they would be exempt from the commission's recommendations at least through 2019; doctors, hospices and medical-equipment suppliers would be beyond its reach entirely. Who is left? Maybe no one. "The exception for hospitals...