The federal government funneled billions in subsidies to software vendors and some overstated or deceived the government about what their products could do, according to whistleblowers.
Category: CMS
KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Legislate-A-Palooza
The House passed legislation that would give federal workers 12 weeks of paid parental leave. The measure appears headed for passage in the Senate, and President Donald Trump has promised to sign the measure into law. Meanwhile, House and Senate lawmakers have a tentative deal on surprise medical bills, but don’t count on a compromise just yet. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner and Emmarie Huetteman of Kaiser Health News join guest host Mary Agnes Carey of KHN to discuss this and more. And for “extra credit,” the panelists offer their favorite health stories of the week they think you should read, too.
Obamacare Back At The High Court — With Billions For Insurers On The Line
The case revolves around a health law provision designed to help insurers recover some losses because they had an unusually high number of sick and expensive customers. Insurers complain that when Republican lawmakers discontinued funding the program, it was like “Lucy Van Pelt pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.”
KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: We Spend HOW MUCH On Health Care?
The annual accounting of national health spending is out. And the 2018 health bill for the U.S. was $3.6 trillion, consuming nearly a fifth of the nation’s economy. Meanwhile, Congress is nearing the end of the year without having finished either its annual spending bills or several other high-priority health items. Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Also, Rovner interviews KHN’s Markian Hawryluk about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month.”
Startup Seeks To Hold Doctors, Hospitals Accountable On Patient Record Requests
Despite laws requiring that health care providers hand over copies of patient records in a timely fashion, many people have trouble getting theirs. Ciitizen, a Palo Alto, Calif., company that helps cancer patients with the task, recently published a scorecard that rates hospitals, doctors and clinics on their compliance with records requests.
Record Number Of Legionnaires’ Cases In 2018 Risk Lives, Cause Cleanup Headaches
Legionnaires’ disease cases hit an all-time high in 2018, with eight times more cases than 20 years ago. Even though many facilities in Missouri and elsewhere have water management plans in place to deal with the potentially deadly disease, they are still finding the underlying bacteria that causes it in their water.