WASHINGTON -- House Republicans answer critics by at last presenting their Obamacare replacement plan, and the Obama administration discloses a massive Medicare fraud sweep.
House GOP Unveils Obamacare Replacement Plan
House Republicans released a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a variety of measures previously endorsed by party leaders.
The 37-page proposal, part of a series of proposals introduced by the GOP leadership entitled "A Better Way: Our Vision for a Confident America," included oft-discussed ideas such as:
- Block-granting Medicaid;
- Raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67;
- Reforming medical liability laws, including caps on non-economic damages;
- Allowing health insurers to sell across state lines; and
- Expanding access to health savings accounts.
"This plan would provide more choice, greater flexibility for consumers, protect the most vulnerable, spur innovation of new medicines and therapies, and preserve Medicare for future generations," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), said in a statement. "Obamacare is failing, but Republicans are ready with a plan to increase access to affordable, high-quality care for more Americans."
301 People Charged With $900 Million in False Medicare Billings
The Obama administration announced the largest nationwide healthcare fraud takedown in 9 years, with charges ranging from making false statements to bribery and money laundering.
The Medicare Fraud Strike Force said Wednesday that it had charged 301 defendants in 36 districts with a total of $900 million in fraudulent billings, according to a press release.
The Strike Force, a collaboration between the Justice and Health and Human Services (HHS) departments, began in 2007 and has charged more than 2,900 individuals with $8.9 billion in fraudulent billings, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell noted during a press conference on Wednesday, adding that the conviction rate stands at 95%.
"These numbers prove that we are finding the people who try to defraud the taxpayers and we are bringing them to justice," she said.
Medicare Part A Trust Fund Estimated to Go Broke in 2028
The hospital care portion of the Medicare program will be solvent until 2028, which is 2 years less than was estimated last year but 11 years longer than was projected before the Affordable Care Act was passed, the Obama administration announced Wednesday in its annual Medicare trustees' report.
"Since the law was passed, increases to healthcare costs have slowed substantially," Treasury Secretary Jacob "Jack" Lew said at a press conference. "Nevertheless, the projections suggest that the Medicare Trust Fund will be depleted in 2028, and Medicare faces a substantial long-term shortfall that needs to be addressed."
The trustees' report also had some cautionary words for physicians: "While the physician payment updates and new incentives put in place by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) avoid the significant short-range physician payment issues that would have resulted from the sustainable growth rate (SGR) system approach, they nevertheless raise important long-range concerns.
Is MACRA All It's Cracked Up to Be?
"Doctors are going to be livid when they absorb the fact that they spent so much political capital to enact MACRA only to find out ... that under the current payment system, doctors are going to get paid less; that gap will grow over time," said Robert Moffit, PhD, senior fellow in the Center for Health Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank here. "When they absorb that fact, I think we're going to see more trouble on Capitol Hill over physician payment."
Moffit spoke at a briefing here Thursday on the Medicare trustees' report sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute.
Other panelists seemed to take a calmer view: "The overall message I'd take away is that in the near term, the Affordable Care Act is working," said Keith Fontenot, a visiting scholar at Brookings. "In the long term, there are challenges -- providers [need] tools to sustain productivity, and there are other issues like the cost of prescription drugs."
End-of-Life Care Often Overlooks Patient Preference, Senators Told
"I feel like I'm dying and everybody is afraid to tell me."
That's what one patient told a nurse colleague of Kate Lally, MD, chief of palliative care at Kent Hospital in Warwick, R.I. Lally testified Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
"Medicine and society have failed to recognize that people have priorities in their life besides just living longer," Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, author, journalist, executive director of Ariadne Labs, and a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told the committee.
Next Week
On Tuesday, the FDA's Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee meets to discuss empagliflozin (Jardiance) tablets and empagliflozin and metformin hydrochloride (Synjardy) tablets.
Also on Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Finance will explore the proposed Medicare Part B demonstration project.
And the FDA's Pediatric Subcommittee of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee will discuss "potential pediatric development plans for four products in various stages of development for adult cancer indications."
On Wednesday, the same subcommittee will discuss possible pediatric development plans for two products under development for adult cancer indications (LOXO-101 and entrectinib) and the "unmet clinical need in the nearly uniformly fatal brain tumor, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma."
And the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will discuss Zika protection and prevention.
D.C. Week: House GOP Unveils Obamacare Replacement Plan
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