Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
Price Passes First Hurdle, But Still Has a Ways to Go to Win the Race
Plus: Uncertainty over ACA repeal causes industry frustration and consumer consternation.
With the Senate finance committee at odds over President Trump’s cabinet nominations, the first few weeks have been slow going to fill the vital spots. However, on Feb. 1, 2017 despite a boycott by the Democratic senators on the committee, the Republicans pushed through the nomination with a vote of 14 to 0 for Tom Price, the president’s nominee for HHS secretary.
Price — a U.S. House Representative from Georgia, physician, and businessman — has been under scrutiny the last few weeks, and the Democrats had asked for more time to check into his finances.
Now that Price has passed the first round, his nomination will go to the entire Senate at an undetermined date for the next level of approval, leaving the HHS, CMS, and other federal healthcare programs in limbo while they await a leader. Stay tuned to future issues for the final result, and how this ultimately impacts Medicare.
In other news …
From AARP worries about how seniors will cope with an ACA repeal to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) warning that Congress should have a strong alternative in place before replacing it, healthcare leaders and consumer rights advocates agree that legislators should slow down and think things through before making any drastic changes.
“Consistent with this core principle, we believe that before any action is taken through reconciliation or other means that would potentially alter coverage, policymakers should lay out for the American people, in reasonable detail, what will replace current policies,” James L. Madara, MD, AMA chief executive officer and executive vice president said in a January 2017 press release. “Patients and other stakeholders should beable to clearly compare current policy to new proposals so they can make informed decisions about whether it represents a step forward in the ongoing process of health reform.”
To take a look at the AMA letter by Dr. Madara, visit https://www.ama-assn.org/ama-letter-congressional-leaders-reform-health-care-system.
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Price Passes First Hurdle, But Still Has a Ways to Go to Win the Race
Plus: Uncertainty over ACA repeal causes industry frustration and consumer consternation. With the Senate finance [...]
