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Politico...
Reform regulations
fire up health debate
By David Nather
4/1/11
The Senate wrapped up its work Thursday without repealing the hated
paperwork requirement of the health care law. Again. But the
long-delayed accountable-care-organization regulation finally came out
— providing details on a part of the law with the potential to
thoroughly transform care delivery.
Just about everyone in Washington who deals with health care policy is
reading through the 429-page proposed rule on how to set up ACOs. The
new entities will be networks of hospitals and doctors who will work
together to share the care of Medicare patients and try to save money
in the process.
“It’s a piece of the overarching theme” of trying to cut wasted health
care spending without denying medical care that people actually need,
said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health
Solutions.
The Department of Health and Human Services published the rules at
11:15 a.m. Thursday, and the Federal Register website was nearly frozen
all day from the heavy demand from health care policy wonks. At the
same time, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice
antitrust division put out guidelines that explain how providers can
form the networks without breaking the antitrust laws.
The new program, which starts in 2012, is a centerpiece of the
experiments in the law that focus on “bending the cost curve” — the
catchphrase that was used so often during the health care debate. The
idea is to give physicians and hospitals a reason to work together —
and talk to each other — to save money and avoid duplicating efforts,
rather than just doing more and more procedures so they can make more
money.
The experiments are “at the heart of being able to get costs under
control while improving care at the same time,” said Debra Ness,
president of the National Partnership for Women and Families and a
leader of the Campaign for Better Care.
Meanwhile, the Senate focused on trying to repeal the health care law’s
1099 reporting requirement, which is opposed by small businesses,
Democrats, Republicans and President Barack Obama. When it is finally
repealed, all those players are likely to want to claim credit for
doing so.
Read the rest of the story at Politico
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