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CBO Says Federal Health Care Spending Will More Than Double in Decade. Federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid and other government health care programs will increase by more than 200% over the next decade, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report, The Hill's "Healthwatch" reports. The report estimated that spending will increase from $810 billion in 2010, or 5.8% of gross domestic product, to $1.8 trillion in 2021, or 7.4% of GDP. The report stated that Medicare spending could increase by $250 billion over the next 10 years, unless Congress develops a permanent solution to the program's physician reimbursement formula.

CBO also estimated faster growth in Medicaid enrollment because of a program expansion under the federal health reform law. The agency's 2010 health spending report estimated that 76 million U.S. residents would be enrolled in Medicaid by 2020, while the 2011 report predicts enrollment will be nearer to 97 million in 2021 (Millman, "Healthwatch," The Hill, 1/26). New Research Outlines Primary Care Challenges For States Under Health Reform.

Newswise — A new article released online January 26 in the New England Journal of Medicine, authored by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and supported by the Geiger Gibson/ RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative, examines primary care capacity challenges that states will face when Medicaid eligibility expands in 2014, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The health reform law expands Medicaid’s income eligibility level for non-elderly adults up to 133% of the federal poverty line (about $30,000 for a family of four) across the nation in 2014. The authors explain that coverage will expand substantially in those states with restrictive Medicaid eligibility requirements and high uninsurance rates. Using estimates of the size of planned Medicaid expansions and current primary care capacity, the researchers computed rankings across the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Comment/Share. National Association of Community Health Centers: Statement of Tom Van Coverden Regarding the President's State of the Union Address January 26, 2011. Login Get it via our RSS feed News Center 7501 Wisconsin Ave, Suite 1100W Bethesda, MD 20814 www.nachc.com Sitemap. Journal Sues to Open Up Medicare Database. White House To Focus on Health Care Services for Military, Families. Americans Increasingly Polarized Over Health Care Reform. What do Americans think of health care reform? The short answer is "everything. " According to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, Americans' views are all over the map. As Republicans have stepped up efforts to repeal the health insurance reform law, the percentage of Americans who oppose it grew 9 points in January, the survey found.

That means half of Americans are now against the law, compared to 41% who support it. In the survey of 1,502 adults in early January, about 28% said they want to expand the law, 19% want to keep it as is, 23% want to repeal and replace it and 20% just want to repeal it. "The public is frustrated with politics as usual, and may be saying that defunding a law is not how government should work," Mollyann Brodie, director of the Kaiser Foundation's Public Opinion and Survey Research group, said in a statement. Deficit Concerns Continue. HHS Announces More Funding for Health Insurance Exchanges.

On Thursday, HHS announced new grants to states developing their own health insurance exchanges under the federal health reform law, The Hill’s "Healthwatch" reports (Millman, "Healthwatch," The Hill, 1/20). Background Under the reform law, states by January 2014 must create insurance exchanges that provide coverage options for individuals and small businesses (Vesely, Modern Healthcare, 1/20). States can choose to administer their own exchanges -- for which they must have some infrastructure in place by January 2013 -- or ask the federal government to run the exchanges for them. Last year, HHS awarded $1 million each to 48 states and the District of Columbia to begin designing online health insurance exchanges and to study the readiness of IT systems and infrastructure.

Officials said the funds could help states develop easy-to-use Web platforms and set up new IT systems to determine whether applicants qualify for subsidies or programs such as Medicaid (iHealthBeat, 10/1/10). New Grants. Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients. If Camden, New Jersey, becomes the first American community to lower its medical costs, it will have a murder to thank. At nine-fifty on a February night in 2001, a twenty-two-year-old black man was shot while driving his Ford Taurus station wagon through a neighborhood on the edge of the Rutgers University campus. The victim lay motionless in the street beside the open door on the driver’s side, as if the car had ejected him. A neighborhood couple, a physical therapist and a volunteer firefighter, approached to see if they could help, but police waved them back.

“He’s not going to make it,” an officer reportedly told the physical therapist. “He’s pretty much dead.” She called a physician, Jeffrey Brenner, who lived a few doors up the street, and he ran to the scene with a stethoscope and a pocket ventilation mask. After some discussion, the police let him enter the crime scene and attend to the victim. “He was slightly overweight, turned on his side,” Brenner recalls. Press Release Distribution - PR Agency. AOL Health to Bring Your Questions on Health-Care Reform to the White House - AOL Health.