The co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction have announced that the committee has failed to come to an agreement on a deficit reduction strategy.  The bi-partisan, bicameral committee, formed by the Budget Control Act, was charged with reducing the national deficit by at least $1.2 trillion.

The committee’s failure to reach an agreement means automatic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion, to be split between defense spending and non-defense programs, will become effective in January 2013.  Under this across-the-board cut, hospitals face a 2 percent reduction to Medicare payments over nine years (2013 to 2021).  Medicaid cuts are, however, exempt from the cuts.

Congress will now take the time to determine the next steps for deficit reduction.  Some are calling for the cuts to be repealed or delayed further, though the president has already threatened to veto any attempts to do so as a means to encourage continued Congressional action on deficit reduction.

IHA strongly opposes the cuts to hospitals as not only are they incredibly arbitrary, but hospitals have already committed to more than $155 billion in Medicare cuts to help finance the health care reform law.  By simply piling on more and more cuts, hospitals are finding themselves unable to expand critical services and are unable to create jobs with so much financial uncertainty, adding additional pressure to the economy.  IHA will continue to work with Iowa’s Congressional Delegation on this issue.

Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and the Web.

Iowa News

Harkin welcomes Supreme Court review of health care law
U. S. Sen. Tom Harkin issued a statement praising the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review challenges to the Obama administration’s landmark health care reform law and voiced confidence that its constitutionality will be upheld. (Des Moines Register)

Skiff nurse earns prestigious medical certification
Christine Hinshaw, a registered nurse in the Skiff Medical Center obstetrics department, has been named an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), an accreditation that places her with a select number of breastfeeding experts, with less than 100 in the state of Iowa. (Newton Independent)

Quad Cities congressmen slam leadership over supercommittee failure
Quad-City area lawmakers took a bipartisan approach Monday to the congressional supercommittee’s failure. Their verdict: The congressional leadership, including their own, let the country down. None of the lawmakers representing the Quad-Cities was on the 12-member supercommittee, but they all may have to deal with the fallout from voters next year. (Quad City Times)

National News

Supercommittee announces failure in effort to tame debt
A special congressional committee created to try to curb the national debt abandoned its work and conceded failure Monday, the latest setback in a long effort by Washington to overcome ideological differences and stem the rising tide of red ink. (Washington Post)

Local California Republicans Quietly Embrace Medicaid Expansion
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the number three Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, has a very clear record on the Affordable Care Act. He has repeatedly called for its defeat and was one of the co-sponsors of the January repeal measure that easily passed the House but died in the Senate. (Kasier Health News)

The conservative case for healthcare reform’s individual mandate
The Supreme Court will rule next year on the constitutionality of the healthcare reform passed in 2010. But constitutionality notwithstanding, Republican opposition to the new law has been vigorous and consistent. In recent GOP presidential debates the candidates have been unanimous in condemning it, in particular objecting to the requirement that almost all Americans obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. (Los Angeles Time)

Hospitals try to find savings, cut unnecessary care
At five Bon Secours Health System hospitals on the East Coast, giving fewer blood transfusions during heart surgeries has had some counterintuitive results: Not only did costs fall, but care improved, officials say. (USA Today)

Congress is now on recess for the month of August although party leaders remain focused on the selection of the 12 member “debt commission” charged with cutting $1.5 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years by the end of the year.

The committee is nearly assembled with 9 of the 12 members having been announced.  From the Senate leaders selected Democrats Patty Murray (WA), Max Baucus (MT), John Kerry (MA) and Republicans Jon Kyl (AZ), Pat Toomey (PA) and Rob Portman (OH).  In the House: Republicans Jeb Hensarling (TX), Dave Camp (MI) and Fred Upton (MI) were nominated to serve.  House Democrats have not yet been selected, and must do so by August 16.

Once finalized, the committee will begin its work looking for spending reductions.  The commission must agree upon an adequate level of savings by November 23 when it will then seek support of the full Congress.  Congress must vote to approve the cuts by December 23 in order for the debt ceiling to be raised again.  However, should the committee fail to agree on cuts or successfully sell their proposal to Congress, then an automatic across-the-board cut will go into effect.  This would trigger an automatic $1.2 trillion cut to the federal budget.  Medicare cuts would be capped at 2 percent and Medicaid would be exempted from the cuts.

IHA continues to monitor the ongoing work in Washington, D.C. hospital advocates should stay tuned to the IHA Policy Blog for continuing coverage as more details unfold.

With less than two weeks to strike a deal or face a default on the nation’s $14 trillion debt, Congressional leaders are scrambling to piece together a package of program cuts and revenue options can be accepted by Senate Democrats, the White House and conservative House Republicans.

This week the so-called “Gang of Six” released a new proposal that is gaining traction.  Members include Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mark Warner (D-VA).

Their plan to seeks to reduce national deficit by nearly $4 trillion over 10 years and proposes billions in cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.  A few of members of the Gang of Six have yet to formally sign off on the framework but President Obama, after reviewing the proposal, added his support saying that proposal is on the right track concerning this issue.

The proposal seeks a two-part process with $500 billion in initial cuts followed by a process for congressional committees to pass a larger deficit reduction measure within 6 months.  Committees would be responsible for finding additional discretionary cuts and $800 – $900 billion in entitlement savings, as well as $1.1 trillion in new revenues.

The plan is unlikely to emerge in the short-term discussion of how to address the debt ceiling by August 2, though it could set up a series of short-term extensions giving Congress time to work on a larger measure.

The proposal comes on the heels of a party-line vote in the House this week on the bill referred to as the “cut, cap, and balance” legislation.  The 234-190 vote was backed by the freshmen “tea-party” caucus, even though it’s been widely reported that the legislation is dead on arrival in the Senate and faces a White House veto.

IHA has issued a series of Action Alerts urging Congress to protect hospital payments under Medicare and Medicaid as negotiations continue:

Prospective Payment System Hospitals – Take Action Here
Critical Access Hospitals – Take Action Here
Rural Prospective Payment or “Tweener” Hospitals – Take Action Here

Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and the Web.

Iowa News

Iowa Senate approves Medicaid spending plan
The Iowa Senate has approved a measure that calls for spending $1.1 billion on Medicaid, a program shared with the federal government that provides health care for poor and elderly people. (KGAN-TV)

Community gathers for KRHC
The open house was supposed to start at 5 p.m., but by 4 p.m. people were already lining up for tours of Kossuth Regional Health Center’s expansion. Others were gathered behind the hospital for games, balloons, pony rides and a barbecue. (Algona Upper Des Moines)

Focus on Improving Patient Care Motivates Hospital to Upgrade Electronic Health Record
For Cass County Memorial Hospital, electronic health records are nothing new. The 25 bed critical access hospital in Atlantic, Iowa has had a system in place since 1995. Initially, the system was designed for nursing notes and ambulatory order entry. Now, the process is underway to upgrade to the latest and most robust meaningful use certified version of their EHR, bringing state of the art technology to the hospital. (IowaHITREC News)

2 named to UI Health Care posts
Two new administrators have been named to help run operations for University of Iowa Health Care, officials announced Wednesday.  (Iowa City Press-Citizen)

Trinity breaks ground on new Cancer Center

Dozens of guests arrived in mild rain under a gray evening sky Wednesday to applaud the groundbreaking of Trinity Regional Medical Center’s new Cancer Center. (Fort Dodge Messenger)

National News

Condition Gray: Inside the hospital as the Joplin tornado hit
Looking back, they remember the quiet — like a last, deep breath before death. In the nursery of St. John’s Regional Medical Center, newborns napped in bassinets. Ventilators hummed in an intensive-care unit. (Kansas City Star)

HHS Scales Back Rules On Health Insurance Appeals
The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it is scaling back some of its earlier rules under the 2010 health law that governed consumers’ right to appeal denials by health plans, disappointing patient advocates and earning praise from industry groups. (Kaiser Health News)

Attorneys argue in NJ court over constitutionality of federal health care reform law
A federal appeals court hearing arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of last year’s U.S. health reform law focused primarily on whether plaintiffs need to demonstrate they are suffering economic harm now or will when the part of the law mandating that everyone have health coverage takes effect. (Washington Post)

Doc shortage fuels hospital-physician employment agreements
As the national physician shortage continues, hospitals are grasping for physicians and hanging onto them with employment arrangements, according to a white paper by consulting firm Deloitte. (Fierce Healthcare)

AMA, others advise HHS to clarify meaningful use regs
A collaborative of seven organizations, including the American Hospital Association (AHA), American Medical Association (AMA) and the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS), has proposed changes to clarify and streamline the process of achieving meaningful use objectives. (CMIO)