I thought Obamacare was supposed to take care of this:
"A woman with an uninsured daughter ran into a catch-22 that illustrates the law’s complexity.
Why does HEALTH CARE have to be SO COMPLEX?
Mary Thompson of Overland Park, Kan., was sure the law would finally get 11-year-old Emily on the family’s health insurance.
Insurers had repeatedly rejected Emily due to a birth defect of the spine. The law requires insurers to accept children regardless of preexisting health problems, a safeguard that will extend to people of all ages in 2014.
But because Emily’s father is self-employed and the family buys its own coverage, things didn’t work out as expected.
Certain “grandfathered’’ plans selling individual coverage are exempt from the law’s requirement to cover kids.
Didn't the Democrats say they were going to fix that?
Related: Reading the Health Care Fine Print For the Little People
The Thompsons’ plan was one. That meant they would have to apply for a whole new policy, and the mother, a breast cancer survivor, was unlikely to be accepted....
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I'm sure the administration will change that:
US drafts rules for managed care
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed much-anticipated rules yesterday to spur controversial changes in the way health care for older Americans is organized and paid for.
The rules lay out a path for doctors, hospitals, and other care providers to form teams called “accountable care organizations,’’ which advocates say would save money by better coordinating services for Medicare patients.
See: Obama's HMOs
Under the rules, teams that treat patients for less money would be rewarded financially by the government if they meet certain measures of quality.
See: The Massachusetts Model: Recipe For Rationing
Health and Human Services officials predicted yesterday that the Medicare ACOs, as the arrangements are called, will save the financially strained program $510 million to $960 million in the first three years after they go into effect next January.
Related: There is Money in Medicare Fraud
Critics have worried that the arrangements could, instead, become large health care monopolies that could suppress competition for patients and, as a result, drive up costs.
That's what we have here in Massachusetts.
Accountable care organizations differ sharply from health maintenance organizations, which were widely unpopular.
Yeah, they go by a different name!
ACOs are run by doctors or hospitals, rather than by insurance companies. Some have already sprung up around the country, but the federal law enacted a year ago to overhaul the nation’s health care system tries to spur their development by weaving them into the Medicare program.
In announcing the proposed rules, Donald Berwick — administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the Health and Human Services Department — praised accountable care organizations as an “exciting and productive’’ way to overcome the fragmentation of care for older patients, most of whom have several chronic medical problems that sometimes are treated by doctors who do not communicate with one another.
Berwick said accountable care organizations encourage doctors, hospitals, nurses, and other care-givers to share medical records, emphasize preventive care, and “invest in keeping people healthy.’’
Yeah, right, that is why the government is adjusting the safety levels for radiation as a result of the Japanese crisis.
Related: Obamacare the End of Employer-Based Health Plans
Also see: Making a case vs. Obama’s health care law
"Ryan’s plan has no chance of being approved by the Democratic-run Senate....
Then why all the ink?
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The Globe is like the hiccups; I just can't get rid of them.
Ooooh, that last one came up puke!
