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Medicare Structural Reform: Background and Options
THis report provides a brief overview of major issues underlying the debate about possible structural reforms or improvements to the current Medicare system. Medicare is a nationwide health insurance program for the aged and certain disabled persons.
Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 (P. L. 93-222)
This report discusses the provisions of the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 (P. L. 93-222) which provided funding to assist in the start-up of health maintenance organizations (HMO).
Discretionary Spending Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Affordable Care Act, or ACA) reauthorized funding for numerous existing discretionary grant programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The ACA also created many new discretionary grant programs and provided for each an authorization of appropriations. Generally, the law authorized (or reauthorized) appropriations through FY2014 or FY2015. This report summarizes all the discretionary spending provisions in the ACA.
Health Insurance Coverage for Retirees
With the retirement of the baby boom generation looming ahead, employers offering coverage to their retired workers will face a huge future financial commitment. Some employers have already reduced or eliminated their commitment to insure their retirees. Recent trends indicate that retiree health benefits are increasingly subject to higher beneficiary cost-sharing. Further, among employers who provide health insurance for current retirees, their current workers are less likely to be guaranteed these benefits upon retirement. This report discusses issues regarding health insurance coverage for retirees.
Tax Benefits for Health Insurance and Expenses: Overview of Current Law and Legislation
This report discusses how tax policy affects health insurance and health care spending.
Medicaid and Graduate Medical Education
This report discusses Medicaid coverage of graduate medical education (GME) costs. GME costs are difficult to determine because teaching occurs in the context of patient care and research. There are direct GME (DGME) costs, which include residents' stipends, payments to supervising physicians, and direct program administration costs.
Tax Benefits for Health Insurance: Current Legislation
No Description Available.
Budget Reconciliation FY2006: Provisions Affecting the Medicaid Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP)
The federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) is the rate at which states are reimbursed for most Medicaid service expenditures. The FY2006 budget reconciliation bills passed by the House (H.R. 4241) and Senate (S. 1932) include provisions that would affect state FMAPs for Medicaid in a number of ways. This report describes these provisions and estimates their impact on FY2006 FMAPs.
Mental Health Parity and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010
This report provides a brief background on mental health parity and the policy discussion around parity in health insurance coverage; an overview of federal mental health parity law prior to the enactment of the ACA; and an analysis of the impact of the ACA.
Foreign Health Care Systems: A Bibliography of Selected References
This report provides a bibliography of resources related to health care systems around the world organized by location.
Military Medical Care Services: Questions and Answers
No Description Available.
Social Security and Medicare "Lock Boxes"
No Description Available.
Medicare: Payments to Physicians
This report discusses payments for physicians services under Medicare that are made on the basis of a fee schedule.
TRICARE and VA Health Care: Impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
The 111th Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, and hereafter referred to as PPACA. This report addresses key questions concerning how PPACA affects the Department of Defense (DOD) TRICARE program and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care.
Budget Reconciliation: Projections of Funding in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
In FY2005, six states faced the prospect of running out of federal funds in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). This was the first time since the program’s creation in 1997 that multiple states faced such a shortfall. The shortfalls were avoided by the redistribution of funds from other states’ original SCHIP allotments that had not been spent by the end of the three-year period of availability. To address this, the reconciliation proposal approved by the Senate Finance Committee would reduce the period of availability for original allotments from three years to two.
The Ebola Outbreak: Quarantine and Isolation Authority
This legal sidebar discusses recent quarantine policies announced by several states, including New York and New Jersey, for travelers arriving from areas affected by the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease, which have raised legal and constitutional questions about federal and state authority to order quarantine and isolation measures.
Title X (Public Health Service Act) Family Planning Program
This report looks at several bills addressing the Family Planning Program (Title X of the Public Health Service Act) which have been introduced in the 112th Congress, including: funding for abortion-providing entities, elimination of the program, and prohibitions on government spending for the program.
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