2011 November Health Care News

The November 2011 issue of Health Care News reports on a hidden camera investigation into the Medicaid payment practices of several states. Volunteers for Project Veritas, posing as drug smugglers engaged in child prostitution and other illegal activities, exposed waste, fraud, and abuse in several state Medicaid offices.

Also in this issue:

• If a state doesn’t implement a health insurance exchange under President Barack Obama’s health care law, the federal government has the authority to establish one for it ... except the Obamacare law didn’t provide funding for federal exchanges, only state-created ones.

• As Medicaid costs mount to unsustainable levels, Republican governors are calling on the Obama administration to allow increased flexibility in administering the program.

• The Obama administration is struggling to find consumers willing to join federal high-risk insurance pools, even with slashed rates.

• The state and federal health insurance exchanges mandated by Obamacare are increasingly seen as a bureaucratic disaster and destructive of the insurance market.

• Federal payments required by Obamacare are being understated by as much as $50 billion per year because forecasts ignored the cost of insuring many employees’ spouses and children.

• HHS is trying--with little success--new tactics in an attempt to get reluctant states to develop health insurance exchanges as mandated by Obamacare.

• Federal government policy is causing an increase in shortages of lifesaving drugs, argues Richard Epstein.