State Children’s Health Insurance Program
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday saidcongressional Democratic leaders will not compromise with PresidentBush on SCHIP, after Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation that wouldhave reauthorized and expanded the program, the AP/St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. Democratic leaders said that no matter the outcome of the override vote, they would [...]
CMS officialson Thursday announced plans to advance a "means testing" proposal thatwould require higher-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay higherpremiums and deductibles under the Medicare prescription drug benefit,the Washington Post reports.
Theproposal, which CMS first drafted as part of the fiscal year 2008budget plan that President Bush announced in February, died earlierthis year without much attention. However, [...]
Sixteen states and Puerto Rico have just been awarded nearly $52 million to fund research and design in new ways to improve Medicaid efficiency, economy and quality of care, Secretary Mike Leavitt announced.
States will use the funds to implement innovative systems to get more value out of the money they spend providing health care to [...]
Private health insurance premiums in Minnesota grew by 7.2 percent per enrollee in 2006, up from 4.5 percent in 2005, according to a new report by the Health Economics Program at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). Growth in health plans ,, expenses per enrollee increased from 7.2 percent in 2005 to [...]
?>Two Arizona surgeons on Tuesday unveiled a 2008 statewide generalelection ballot proposal that would prevent mandated health coveragefrom ever being enacted in the state, the Arizona Republicreports. Jeffrey Singer, treasurer of the ballot measure campaign, saidthe proposal would preserve residents’ rights to purchase or abstainfrom purchasing health insurance (Pitzel, Arizona Republic, 9/26).
Theproposal, called the [...]
State Children’s Health Insurance Program
President Bush on Saturday in his weekly radio address indicatedthat he is willing to increase funding for SCHIP above his proposedlevel of $5 billion, the Los Angeles Times reports (Pasternak, Los Angeles Times,10/7). The comments were Bush’s "first public gesture of a possiblecompromise with the Democrat-controlled Congress on how much to [...]
Guardian Life and Humanaare introducing multiyear health insurance plans for small andmedium-sized businesses that aim to provide employers with morepredictable premiums from year to year, the Wall Street Journalreports. Both companies’ plans are meant to appeal to employers thathave been "struggling with double-digit premium increases" in recentyears, according to the Journal.
Guardian’s"Premium Protect" plan [...]
State Children’s Health Insurance Program
Mary Agnes Carey, associate editor of CQ HealthBeat,discusses House Democrats’ efforts to override President Bush’s veto ofSCHIP expansion legislation, a House hearing about tobacco regulationand disability benefits for veterans in this week’s "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork.org and CQ."Accordingto Carey, House Democrats and advocates are trying to sway HouseRepublicans and [...]
Health Insurance Premiums
Reps. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Wally Herger (R-Calif.) have introduced legislation (HR 3660) that would allow self-employed individuals to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums from their payroll taxes, the Washington Post reports (McLoone, Washington Post,9/26). Under current law, sole proprietorships cannot exclude healthinsurance premiums from payroll taxes of 15.3%, while corporations [...]
About 95% of Iowa residents who live in rural areas have healthinsurance and feel they have adequate access to health care services,compared with 89% of residents who live in or near cities, according toa survey released Friday, the Des Moines Register reports.
The survey of 1,000 Iowa adults was conducted and funded by the Iowa [...]
