News in brief - Feb. 25, 2008

House lawmakers introduce bill to boost Medicaid

A bipartisan group of four congressmen has introduced legislation that would increase federal Medicaid funding by 3% for five quarters. States would qualify if they maintained their Medicaid eligibility levels. The measure's cost had not been estimated as of press time, said a spokesman for Rep. Frank Pallone (D, N.J.), the bill's sponsor.

House and Senate leaders did not include a temporary increase to federal Medicaid funding in their recently adopted $152 billion economic stimulus package, which President Bush is expected to sign. Still, Pallone said he was optimistic that the Medicaid bill would advance.

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HHS chief supports mandatory e-prescribing in Medicare

Congress should make e-prescribing a condition of participation in Medicare by 2011, said Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt at a Feb. 6 Senate Finance Committee hearing. "It saves lives. It saves money. And it's time," he said in response to a question by Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.).

Kerry is a sponsor of the Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection Act. The bill would reduce by 10% the payment for Medicare evaluation and management services provided in connection with a medication prescription that the physician could have made electronically but did not. On the flip side, the measure also would give E&M bonuses to doctors who e-prescribe.

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Indiana program for uninsured sees healthy enrollment

Healthy Indiana, a program to help uninsured residents get health coverage, has received more than 23,000 applications in the six weeks since the program began accepting the forms on Jan. 1, according to Indiana Family and Social Services Administration spokeswoman Lauren Auld.

The program was expecting 4,000 applications a month. In response, the department doubled its staff from 45 to 91 to enable it to process 12,000 applications each month, up from 6,000, Auld said.

The program provides a type of health savings account of $1,100 per adult for residents earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level who have been uninsured for at least six months and do not have access to employer-sponsored insurance.

The maximum contribution from enrollees is 5%. About 375,000 Indiana residents are chronically uninsured and earn less than 200% of poverty. Healthy Indiana has enough funding to provide insurance to about 130,000 of them.

The account can be used to pay for physician office visits, prescription drugs, home health services, outpatient and inpatient hospital care, family planning and mental health care. There are no co-pays for care except for emergency department visits.

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Colo. commission backs individual insurance mandate

A commission created by the Colorado General Assembly in 2006 recommended 31 steps late last month to expand health care access to about 700,000 of the 800,000 uninsured people in the state.

The recommendations include requiring all legal Colorado residents to have a minimum level of insurance coverage, creating a state-subsidized health insurance pool, increasing Medicaid reimbursements for physicians and hospitals, standardizing insurance claim forms and paying physicians based on quality. The commission recommended a gradual implementation of the reforms.

The panel solicited comprehensive health system reform proposals from the general public last year. It received 31 and narrowed them down to five. These served as the basis for the commission's final report, which can be accessed online (www.colorado.gov/208commission).

The Colorado Medical Society pledged to work with the Legislature as it tackles reform. "The time is now for a bipartisan, vigorous debate on reforming our broken health care system because the current system is simply not sustainable and time is running out," said CMS President-elect Ben Vernon, MD.

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