Ask Nancy: How does that 50% doughnut hole prescription discount work?


Question When I filled out the Medicare prescription compare plan, I miscalculated my husband’s insulin prescription. Consequently, we reached the doughnut hole within five weeks.
In 2011, we are told that we will be paying 50 percent less on name-brand drugs while in the doughnut hole.

Will the full price of the drugs be deducted from [...]

New rules to help you choose a safer hospital



Soon it will be easier for you to find out how well your hospital prevents certain infections. As part of the new health care reform law, the Department of Health and Human Services will require hospitals to publicly disclose several types of dangerous hospital infections. To ensure full cooperation, the government will boost Medicare payments [...]

CBO Report on Long-Term Budget Outlook Is Grim, But How Much Is Obama’s Fault?


Today, the Congressional Budget Office released its long-term budget outlook. Again, the forecast going forward to 2035 and beyond was a grim reminder of the fiscal future that awaits the U.S., especially if Congress does what it has done for the past ten years: increase spending and cut taxes.

The federal budget [...]

Gaming the Budget Window


Faced with continuing gridlock over a soup-to-nuts extenders bill, congressional leaders have gotten creative in their legislative strategy. Exhibit A is a stripped-down bill that passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Friday. This bill would temporarily reverse the 21% cut in Medicare physician payment rates that took effect earlier this month. The price tag [...]

Dartmouth Analysis Again In the Cross Hairs


By MERRILL GOOZNER Reed Abelson and Gardiner Harris in the New York Times are questioning some of the key assumptions behind the Dartmouth Atlas of Health, which for twenty years has documented wide variations in Medicare utilization rates across the…

A.M. Vitals: Cancer Drugs By Bristol and Novartis May Top Gleevec


Also: what the Internet may be doing to your brain; Medicare Advantage rates for 2011; physician shortages ahead?

AMA Ads Say Senate ‘Took a Vacation’ Instead of Fixing Medicare


The AMA wants the public to contact senators and tell them to “get back to work and fix Medicare now.”

A.M. Vitals: CVS Blames Computer Error for Price Snafu


Also: the Medicare doughnut hole begins to shrink, a Pfizer trial is halted early and ultrasound becomes the new front in the abortion wars.

James Galbraith on Deficits: Dick Cheney of the Far Left


Ezra Klein interviewed James Galbraith, who argued quite forcefully that “the danger [posed by the long-term deficit] is zero.  It’s not overstated.  It’s completely misstated.”


We now have an answer to the trivia question, “What do James Galbraith and Dick Cheney have in common?”  Cheney famously said, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”


Cheney didn’t try to defend [...]

When Medicare “Cuts” are Medicare “Savings”


By MAGGIE MAHAR Summary: If hospitals pay more attention to how they discharge patients, and what happens to them after they leave, Medicare could save billions. Under the reform legislation, beginning in 2011 Medicare will refuse to pay for an…