In The News is a concise digest of health care news in Vermont and the nation. VMS is not responsible for the content of the articles.
VERMONT NEWS
VPR: With uncertainty in Congress, Scott Administration holds on major health care changes
During his gubernatorial campaign, Gov. Phil Scott said that if he was elected, he would move to eliminate Vermont's health care exchange and bring the state into the federal system. But just three weeks into his term, the message from his administration has changed dramatically. That's because while it's likely that the Republican Congress in Washington will vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, there's no consensus on how to replace it. More »
VTDIGGER: MVP backs independent surgical center in Colchester
A major health insurer in Vermont is backing a proposal from independent doctors to build a freestanding surgical center in Colchester. MVP Health Care, which has more than 20,000 customers in Vermont, wrote a letter of support to the Green Mountain Care Board, the regulatory body that has been considering the project for more than a year and a half. The facility MVP is supporting would be called the Green Mountain Surgical Center. It would offer basic surgeries, such as knee repairs and hysterectomies, and other procedures such as colonoscopies and treatment for spinal pain. More »
NATIONAL NEWS
LA TIMES: Here's what primary care doctors really think about Obamacare
A postelection survey of primary care physicians reveals that majorities of the doctors that first treat most Americans do not support some of the GOP’s most widely circulated plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Conducted in December and January and published online Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the new survey shows that nearly three-quarters of general practitioners favored making changes to the Obama administration’s signature healthcare reform measure. But in this nationally representative sample of primary care doctors, only 15% favored the law’s repeal. More »
MODERN HEALTHCARE: AMA, AHA form coalition to reform prior authorization requirements
The American Medical Association, American Hospital Association and 14 other healthcare organizations have joined forces to make it easier to adhere to prior authorization requirements imposed on providers. The coalition, announced Wednesday, will lobby health plans to streamline prior authorization for medical tests, procedures, devices and drugs. More »
NY TIMES: The fight Trump faces over drug prices
President Trump has made it clear that he thinks drug prices are too high and that the pharmaceutical industry, as he put it at a news conference this month, is “getting away with murder.” One of Mr. Trump’s proposals — to force drug makers to bid for the right to sell their products to Medicare beneficiaries — has repeatedly failed to attract enough support in Congress, especially among his fellow Republicans. Whether freeing the government to negotiate on drug prices would lower costs, however, is anything but clear. And its chances of passing a Republican-led Congress are even less so. More »
NY TIMES: Judge Blocks Aetna’s $37 Billion Deal for Humana
A federal judge ruled on Monday that a $37 billion merger between the health insurance giants Aetna and Humana should not be allowed to go through on antitrust grounds, siding with the Justice Department, which had been seeking to block the deal. The deal is one of two mega-mergers proposed by the nation’s largest health insurers; both were challenged by the Obama administration. Another federal judge is expected to rule soon on the case involving Anthem and Cigna, the larger of the two deals, at $48 billion. More »
NY TIMES: Trump’s health plan would convert Medicaid to block grants, aide says
President Trump’s plan to replace the Affordable Care Act will propose giving each state a fixed amount of federal money in the form of a block grant to provide health care to low-income people on Medicaid, a top adviser to Mr. Trump said in an interview broadcast on Sunday. A block grant would be a radical change. Since its creation in 1965, Medicaid has been an open-ended entitlement. If more people become eligible because of a recession, or if costs go up because of the use of expensive new medicines, states receive more federal money. Governors like the idea of having more control over Medicaid, but fear that block grants may be used as a vehicle for federal budget cuts. More »
WASHINGTON POST: CDC abruptly cancels long-planned conference on climate change and health
With little warning or explanation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently canceled a major climate change conference that had been scheduled for next month in Atlanta. The Climate and Health Summit, which had been in the works for months, was intended as a chance for public health officials around the country to learn more about the mounting evidence of the risks to human health posed by the changing climate. But CDC officials abruptly canceled the conference before President Trump’s inauguration, sending a terse email on Jan. 9 to those who had been scheduled to speak at the event. More »
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