OVERNIGHT HEALTH: Disabled could suffer under healthcare ‘fix’

One glitch leads to another: Efforts to fix a glitch in the healthcare reform law could backfire on thousands of people with disabilities.

Republicans want to change a part of the law that made 3 million middle-income people eligible for Medicaid, but several advocates say simply counting Social Security benefits as revenue would hurt people with disabilities. Some 1.8 million people receive Social Security disability benefits but aren’t eligible for Medicare, and the law in its current form would allow many of them to get onto Medicaid.

Advocates’ concerns come as Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) introduced legislation addressing the issue on Monday. The White House says it favors a fix, but wants to protect people with disabilities.

Healthwatch’s Julian Pecquet has the story.

Co-ops: The Health and Human Services Department released the first proposed rule Monday for healthcare co-ops, the nonprofit model created by the healthcare reform law.

Co-ops have to be nonprofit entities governed by their members. Any “excess revenues” must be reinvested to either reduce premiums or improve quality. And because they’re entirely new products, HHS is offering two rounds of loans to help get them off the ground.

Roughly one-third of those loans could end in default, however, according to HHS’s proposed rule on co-ops. The second, and biggest, round of loans covers $3.2 billion to help co-ops comply with state laws governing how much money insurance plans have to keep in reserve. Those loans are supposed to be paid back over 15 years, but HHS estimates that 35 percent of recipients could default.

Healthwatch’s Sam Baker has more on the loans and the regulation.

Baucus likes it: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) praised the regulation. Co-ops were added to the healthcare bill in his committee, where Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) framed them as an alternative to the controversial public option.

“CO-OPs empower consumers and spark competition, and that means more options and higher savings for millions of people in Montana and across the country as they shop for insurance,” Baucus said in a statement. “This is yet another example of the new health reform law putting individuals and small businesses in charge of their care, improving the insurance market, and increasing affordable and quality insurance options.”

Tax targeted: The medical-device industry circulated a pair of new letters Monday calling for the repeal of healthcare reform’s tax on the industry. Lawmakers had a hard time bringing the device industry to the table during reform — unlike pharmaceutical companies, who cut a deal early in the process — and device-makers have been pushing ever since to repeal the law’s tax on their products.

“If this tax is not repealed, it will continue to force affected companies to consider cutting manufacturing operations, research and development, and employment levels to recoup the lost earnings due to the tax. It will also adversely impact patient access to new and innovative medical technologies,” industry groups said in a letter to congressional leaders.

NIH in crosshairs: The conservative Traditional Values Coalition is demanding a moratorium on grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), claiming that it has identified more than half a billion dollars in grants for “questionable research” of dubious value to taxpayers.
Read the Healthwatch post.

‘Market-based’ solutions: Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) defended his approach to healthcare during a speech Monday at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He said “taking off the shackles” from insurance companies is the best way to keep care affordable in rural areas.

LePage signed a bill in May to expand the sale of insurance across state lines, prompting state insurance commissioner Mila Kofman to quit. Healthwatch has more on LePage’s speech.

Compact advances: Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed the “healthcare compact” on Monday, making Texas the fourth state to formally join the compact. The document would, if enacted, turn over all federal healthcare programs to the states, along with the money that the federal government otherwise would have used to fund those programs. But interstate compacts require the approval of both Congress and the president, so this one is quite a long shot.

Tuesday’s agenda
More than 500 advocates for mental-health services will hit Capitol Hill to lobby against potential cuts. They’ll ask lawmakers to expand the use of electronic health records and to avoid cuts to Medicaid — specifically the “blended” federal rate that President Obama has proposed.

Families USA and the National Council of La Raza will also take up for Medicaid on Tuesday. They’re set to release a state-by-state analysis of Medicaid coverage and the Hispanic community.

Lobbying registrations
Cansler Consulting / The LifeCare Group (rural healthcare)
Carman Communications / Stamford Memorial Hospital
Carman Communications / Sayre Memorial Hospital
Carman Communications / Anson General Hospital
Arent Fox / CSL Behring (plasma protein biotherapeutics)
Troutman Sanders Public Affairs Group / Corporate Friends of CDC (advocacy for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
The Nickles Group / Hospice Action Network
The Charles Group / Association of Mature American Citizens
Memorial Health System (self-registration)
HCM Strategists / Aria Health (Pennsylvania hospitals/outpatient care centers)
The McManus Group / Spiracur (medical device company that specializes in wound healing therapies)

What you might have missed on Healthwatch
Report finds holes in state oversight of Medicaid incentives

Medicare means test highlighted

Dems’ muddled message on Medicaid worries advocates

Reading list
Conservative activist James O’Keefe is out with another “sting” video, this time targeting Medicaid. The video purports to show O’Keefe posing as a Russian drug dealer with an expensive sports car who is advised by an Ohio Medicaid employee to withhold most of those details while applying for the program.

The FBI is having a hard time capturing Medicare fraud suspects who flee from the Miami area to Cuba, the Miami Herald reports.

A professor at St. Louis University says “every medical student should go to jail.”

Comments / complaints / suggestions? Please let us know:

Julian Pecquet: jpecquet@digital-release.digital-release.thehill.com / 202-628-8527

Sam Baker: sbaker@digital-release.digital-release.thehill.com / 202-628-8351

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