News in brief - Feb. 21, 2011

AMA announces Nathan Davis award winners at advocacy conference

The American Medical Association has given Nathan Davis awards for government service to seven elected officials and government employees.

The awards recognize people who went above and beyond the call of duty to improve public health, said AMA Board of Trustees Chair Ardis Dee Hoven, MD. "Award winners come from every branch of government service and are a testament to the important role public officials play in creating and implementing health policy that benefits Americans."

The awards, named after AMA founder Nathan Smith Davis, MD, recognize elected and career officials in federal, state or municipal service whose contributions promoted the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health. This was the 22nd year the Association has given the awards, which were presented Feb. 9 at the AMA National Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C.

The 2011 winners are: U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D, Conn.); Vice Adm. Adam M. Robinson Jr., MD, surgeon general of the U.S. Navy and chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery; Maryland state Rep. Dan K. Morhaim, MD; R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; William Gahl, MD, PhD, director of the National Institute of Health's Undiagnosed Diseases Program and clinical director of the National Human Genome Research Center; Donald E. Williamson, MD, state health officer for the Alabama Dept. of Public Health; and Donald F. Schwarz, MD, MPH, Philadelphia's health commissioner and the deputy mayor for health and opportunity.

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Va. pushes Supreme Court to review health reform lawsuit

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his state's lawsuit against the national health system reform law now, instead of waiting for a decision from the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

On Feb. 8, Cuccinelli filed a petition with the Supreme Court arguing for a prompt resolution to the lawsuit, "given the uncertainty caused by divergent court rulings" on the law's constitutionality. He is one of several state attorneys general and others challenging the law's implementation.

Federal judges in Virginia and other states have issued conflicting decisions about whether the reform statute -- particularly the requirement that people buy health insurance or pay a penalty -- violates the Constitution. Most recently, a U.S. district judge in Pensacola, Fla., ruled Jan. 31 that the reform law was unconstitutional.

In Cuccinelli's case, a district judge in December 2010 struck down the individual mandate portion of the law. The judge did not invalidate the entire law or prevent it from going into effect, which Cuccinelli had sought. The Justice Dept. appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, where the case is pending.

Two other judges have upheld the law's insurance mandate as constitutional, and 13 similar challenges have been dismissed. All of those cases also are being appealed.

Appeals generally are heard first at the federal appellate level. However, the U.S. Supreme Court can agree to hear a case if it's proven to be of extreme public importance. The high court has not indicated whether it will review the case. Legal experts said justices rarely agree to hear a case before the Court of Appeals, and in an interview in early February, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the court usually waits "until the case goes through the ordinary route."

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CBO: Health law will result in fewer hours worked

Republicans in Congress, continuing their campaign against the national health reform law, cited Feb. 10 testimony from the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as evidence that the law will eliminate nearly a million jobs in America during the next decade. However, Democrats said Republicans were not telling the full story behind the estimate.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, PhD, said at a House Budget Committee hearing on the economy that the law is expected to reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by about 0.5% between 2011 and 2021. The CBO estimates 160 million people will be working in 2021, so a 0.5% decrease is equal to a net loss of 800,000 full-time jobs.

But the estimate, originally published in an August 2010 CBO report on the nation's long-term economic outlook, concludes that the reduction in hours worked would result primarily from Americans opting to work less because they no longer would need to rely on their jobs to provide health coverage. Many would gain coverage from the law's Medicaid eligibility expansion or new plans offered in health insurance exchanges.

The print version of this content appeared in the Feb. 28 issue of American Medical News.

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