The Minnesota congressman leading the charge to repeal a medical device excise tax that is meant to generate a big chunk of funding for the health care reform law has taken the most campaign money--more than $64,000--from medical device manufacturers this election cycle.
Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., has attracted 240 cosponsors, including 11 Democrats, for his bill to repeal the 2.3 percent excise tax, which the House is scheduled to consider this week. Paulsen hails from a state where the medical device industry is a substantial employer. Companies such as Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, and Starkey Laboratories ...
Continue readingHealth care lobbying groups head to the Supreme Court
If war is politics by other means, so is litigation. While there will be plenty of rhetoric today about President Obama's health care law on the second anniversary of its signing -- including a new op-ed by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was for the health care reform in Massachusetts before he was against it nationally -- the big battle begins Monday, when the Supreme Court opens an unusual three days of argument over the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
In many respects, the mega-case -- a compilation of six separate cases that have been wending through ...
Continue readingSuper Committee, Boehner speech protests linked to major labor group
Our DC, a SEIU-linked protest group that stopped the first Super Committee meeting, has been regularly delivering a pro-jobs message to congressional Republicans: with some 100 protesters outside House Speaker John Boehner's speech at the Economic Club of Washington yesterday, according to organizers, who said the protest was in support of the American Jobs Act.
Last Tuesday, it organized a protest at the first meeting of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the so-called the Super Committee.
“Jobs! Now!” about 25 unemployed or underemployed protesters shouted outside the room, bringing the meeting to a brief halt. “Jobs! Now ...
Continue readingShrinking of private practice may drive up health care costs: study
Over the last three years, more and more doctors have left private practice to work for hospitals. A new study has found that this trend might be contributing to the rising cost of health care, at least in the short term.
Hospital groups, which continue to be some of the biggest donors to members of Congress, wielded considerable influence during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, last year's health care reform law: during 2009 and 2010, hospital and nursing home groups spent over $216 million on lobbying, employing over 1,100 lobbyists in 2010 alone, according to the ...
Medicare and the Super Committee: Can doctors afford to lose two percent of their payments?
Medicare and other health care services could see their funds drained in any number of ways as, over the next few months, the congressional Joint Committee on Debt Reduction--better known as the "super committee"--looks for ways to reduce the national debt.
Health care interests are well represented among the big donors to the committee's dozen members. Half those members--including Max Baucus, Fred Upton, Xavier Becerra and Chris Van Hollen--number health care concerns among their top ten career donors. Collectively, health care professionals ranked fourth among those career donors, giving $9.3 million, according to an analysis of ...
New Sunlight Health App points to problems at an Illinois nursing home
On October 19, 2010, a Rockford, Illinois man was admitted to a local hospital. Emergency room staff found seven large bed sores on his body; some spanned several inches and had advanced to stage IV, the most severe. One wound, according to emergency room notes, was infected and covered his entire tailbone.
The man, identified in inspection reports only as "R1," had developed all of his wounds since arriving at Rockford Nursing & Rehab Center, a 67-bed facility in Rockford, Illinois. Bed sores -- also known as pressure ulcers -- are lesions that typically form when a patient has limited mobility, and her ...
Reporting: Health Care Waivers and Health Care Lobbying
Sarah Dorsey on the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group site posted yesterday about the continued health care reform lobbying. Her post... View Article
Continue readingSunlight Weekly Round-up: Double standards in transparency
When lawmakers introduce legislation that is supposed to increase transparency, naturally we expect that they will lead in the everything... View Article
Continue readingHealth Care Reform Revolving Door
In the middle of December 2010 Andrew McKechnie, the top health care policy advisor to Senate Finance Committee ranking member... View Article
Continue readingNew GOP wave could slow the pace of healthcare reform
House Republicans will begin planning their agendas this week. Many of these candidates made their opposition to the President's health care law a central issue in their campaigns. But to what extent will Tuesday's elections actually affect the course of reform?
Likely Speaker of the House John Boehner has been an outspoken proponent of the "repeal and replace" approach, telling reporters yesterday that he wants to begin "lay(ing) the groundwork" to repeal the law. But overturning health care reform would require a two-thirds majority to beat an Obama veto, a mark the GOP falls far short of ...
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