Happy Super Bowl Sunday!
The House of Representatives will engage in limited Committee business this week while the Senate will convene for Committee business and floor voting. Indeed, tomorrow the Senate will resumes consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R.3076, Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.
The Wall Street Journal observes that Congress has passed several bills on a bipartisan basis since the President’s Build Back Better plan stalled on Capitol Hill.
Already, bills to make the U.S. Postal Service more financially viable, boost U.S. competitiveness with China and ban mandatory arbitration in cases of sexual assault and harassment have picked up steam in Congress. Senators passed the arbitration bill by voice vote, sending it to the president’s desk without a single member of either party demanding a roll call to record yeas and nays.
Legislators also announced an agreement on a framework for legislation to fund the federal government through fiscal year 2022, and a deal to reauthorize a landmark domestic-violence bill, which lapsed in 2019.
Pretty, pretty good.
From the national health emergency front, Vox tells us the latest about the second Omicron variant, and The New York Times’ Morning column reviewed the disgraceful course of our country’s opioid epidemic. The article concludes
| “The solutions are costly. A plan that President Biden released on the campaign trail, which experts praised, would total $125 billion over ten years. That’s far more than Congress has committed to the crisis. Lawmakers haven’t taken up Biden’s plan, and the White House hasn’t pushed for it, so far embracing smaller steps. |
| “But inaction carries a price, too. Overdose deaths cost the economy $1 trillion a year in health expenses, reduced productivity and other losses, a new report concluded — equivalent to nearly half of America’s economic growth last year.” |
While the FEHBlog has not read the President’s plan, he does believe that a solution is desperately needed.
From the healthcare business front, Fierce Healthcare reviews the fourth quarter of 2021 financial results of significant health payers. At the top of the head were United Health Group and CVS Health /Aetna. “Both healthcare giants expect to top $300 billion in revenue this year, according to their forecasts.”
From the compliance front, Healthcare Dive reports
An analysis of 1,000 U.S. hospitals found that only 14.3% were complying with federal price transparency rulesand about 38% of hospitals posted a “sufficient amount of negotiated rates” on their websites.
The PatientRightsAdvocate.org analysis follows a report in July 2021 that showed only 5.6% of 500 random hospitals were in compliance with the rules that were introduced at the start of 2021.
“The largest hospital systems are effectively ignoring the law with no consequences,” the 61-page report said, noting that only two hospitals of 361 at three of the largest hospital systems were in compliance.
The FEHBlog wonders whether compliance would be higher if the compliance deadline (January 1, 2021) had not been at the height of a COVID surge in the ongoing pandemic.
From the preventive care front, the FEHBlog noticed in Health Payer Intelligence a Medicare national coverage determination on lung cancer screening that aligned Medicare coverage with a 2021 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force B graded recommendation.
This in turn reminded the FEHBlog that FEHB plans must cover all 21 USPSTF A and B graded recommendations made in 2021 with no member cost-sharing when delivered in-network beginning January 1, 2023. The FEHBlog counted a dozen such 2021 recommendations in the USPSTF list. Standing alone, those are a lot of changes to include in the 2023 benefit and rate proposals at the end of May 2022.
From the general healthcare front, NPR explains that the surprising details of the 65-year-old actor and comedian Bob Saget disclosed last week illustrate the importance of seeking immediate medical attention if you suffer a blow to your head.
According to his family, [Mr. Saget] “accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep.” No drugs or alcohol were involved, according to a coroner’s report.
Saget had “fractures to the back of his head and around his eyes” at the time of his death, according to an autopsy report from the Orange County, Fla., medical examiner obtained by People. Saget was also COVID-19 positive at the time of his death, the autopsy noted.
While details of how exactly Saget hit his head were not released, doctors stress the importance of seeking medical care immediately if you sustain a head or brain injury.
If you are concerned that you may have a head injury, consider getting yourself checked out,” said Dr. Amit Sachdev, medical director in the department of neurology at Michigan State University.
“Unfortunately, it’s all too common and we in neurology see it quite frequently that head injuries lead to bleeding,” said Sachdev.
The FEHBlog wonders what would have happened if Mr. Saget had been wearing an Apple watch with a fall detection monitor.