From Medscape Medical News

Appeals Court Voids Lower-Court Ruling Against Individual Mandate

Robert Lowes

September 8, 2011 — Citing technical grounds, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, today tossed out a lower-court decision that declared the healthcare reform requirement to obtain insurance coverage unconstitutional.

Today’s decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth District in Richmond vacated a ruling by US District Court Judge Henry Hudson, also in Richmond, who said that the individual mandate “would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers.” In a unanimous decision by a 3-judge panel, the appeals court stated that the state of Virginia, which was the plaintiff in the case, lacked legal standing to bring its suit. The appeals court did not rule on whether the individual mandate was constitutional or not. Continue reading →

From Medscape Medical News

Congress Passes Debt Deal; Could Reduce Medicare Payments

Robert Lowes

August 2, 2011 — With a 74 to 26 vote by the Senate today, a contentious Congress finally passed a bill that both shrinks federal spending and raises the $14.3 trillion federal debt ceiling, just in time to beat an August 2 deadline and avert a catastrophic government default.

The House did its part yesterday by approving the bill 269-161 in a grudging bipartisan vote, with Democrats unhappy that envisioned spending cuts topping $2 trillion were not accompanied by any tax increases, which Republicans vehemently opposed. Next comes the expected signature of President Barack Obama, who had crafted the measure with congressional leaders.

The agreement may calm the financial markets by maintaining the credit worthiness of Uncle Sam, but it is troubling physicians and hospital executives, who could see their Medicare reimbursements trimmed in the process. Those potential cuts would come at a time when providers already face other major Medicare reductions. Continue reading →

Lawsuit Targets Medicare Pay ‘Bias’ Toward Specialists

Robert Lowes

August 10, 2011 — Six family physicians in Georgia have accused the Medicare program in a federal lawsuit of illegally relying on a committee of the American Medical Association (AMA), which they hold responsible for paltry reimbursement rates for primary care physicians and inflated ones for proceduralists.

The lawsuit, filed this week in a US district court in Maryland, is the latest sign of a long-standing rift between primary care clinicians and specialists over Medicare compensation. The professional feud has been obscured recently by organized medicine’s united efforts to replace the sustainable growth rate formula that Medicare uses to set physician pay.

Continue reading →