Lawmakers Still Struggling To Find Permanent Fix For Medicare Physician Pay.

CQ HealthBeat (5/5, subscription required) reports, "A new Congressional Budget Office estimate that eliminating Medicare doctor payment cuts through 2020 would cost $276 billion raises afresh doubts among Capitol Hill observers that Congress will ever find offsets or raise revenues to permanently overhaul the physician payment formula." CQ adds, "The cost of such an overhaul might ultimately have to be piled onto the deficit without such 'pay-fors.'" Notably, "a new deficit control law allows doctor rates to be frozen through 2014 without payment offsets, but doctors may be in no mood to settle for a rate freeze even while it would avoid draconian cuts that would be triggered under the current formula."

Some Parents May Encounter Constraints To Extended Coverage For Adult Children.

The AP (5/5, Murphy) reports, "The most valuable college graduation gift your child receives this spring might come from a health insurer. The health care overhaul calls on insurers to extend coverage for dependents on a parent's health insurance plan to age 26." Under the law, "the extension is effective for the first plan year on or after Sept. 23." But, "waves of insurers have recently announced extensions that start much sooner, in part to keep young adults from hitting coverage gaps that arrive when they finish school." The AP notes, however, that "these voluntary extensions come with a host of qualifications. Whether your child gets one also can depend on your employer."

Health Insurance Exchanges Accessible To Self-Employed.

In the New York Times (5/4, Andrews) "Prescriptions" blog, Michelle Jennifer Tolbert, associate director of the Kaiser Family Foundation, says, "Currently, people without access to health insurance through their jobs often have no other option than to try to buy coverage on the individual market. ... Plans in the exchanges that will open in 2014 will be required to offer a comprehensive package that covers essential health benefits and provides subsidized premiums for people with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level." Tolbert notes that even though "the exchanges are targeted at people who are self-employed or work for small companies, they will be open to almost anyone (though not everyone can receive subsidized coverage)."

Obama Administration To Assist Employers Who Provide Health Coverage For Early Retirees.

The New York Times (5/5, A14, Pear) reports, "The White House announced Tuesday that it would help pay medical bills for early retirees who have health insurance provided by their former employers." The Times adds, "In announcing the initiative, the White House tried to win broader support for President Obama's overhaul of the health care system. Opinion polls suggest that the public remains deeply divided over the merits of the final legislation, passed by Congress without Republican votes." Notably, "the program will run from June 1 of this year to Jan. 1, 2014." Commenting on the announcement, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "predicted that 4,500 employers -- 3,000 private entities and 1,500 state and local governments -- would seek federal aid under the program."

The Financial Times (5/5, Fifield, subscription required) reports that President Barack Obama spoke about the program during a meeting of the Business Council in Washington, DC, saying, "It used to be, if you worked for a big company, when you retired you could count on having health insurance until you were eligible for Medicare." Obama added, "But, one of the consequences of skyrocketing healthcare costs is that the proportion of large firms providing insurance to its retirees has been cut in half over the past two decades. So these folks are often unable to find affordable coverage on the individual market."

Bloomberg News (5/5, Armstrong) also quotes Obama as saying to the meeting attendees, "A lot of the companies in this room can apply for this assistance starting in June. ... This is going to be a welcome reform for many businesses who are trying to provide assistance for retirees." Bloomberg points out that this program "is likely to offset some of those charges," which companies like Caterpillar said they would have to take because of the new healthcare law.

Politico (5/5, Haberkorn) reports, "The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program is designed to help employers cover early retirees who find themselves in a coverage gap, struggling to find affordable insurance coverage in the individual market and not yet eligible for Medicare." HHS has been allocated "$5 billion to distribute to employers who apply, but it's unclear whether the money will be enough to meet demand." Companies "can apply for reimbursements of up 80 percent of claims costs for health benefits between $15,000 and $90,000."

According to the AP (5/5, Alonso-Zaldivar), "Effective next month, federal subsidies will allow employers to recoup a big chunk of the cost of medical claims for retirees ages 55 to 64 not yet eligible for Medicare. Older baby boomers working for large companies -- and looking to downshift to less-demanding employment -- could be immediate beneficiaries." Yet, "in the long run, experts predict that President Barack Obama's health overhaul will accelerate the decline of employer-sponsored retiree coverage, by making it easier for people to find and keep affordable coverage on their own, as well as improving Medicare benefits." CQ HealthBeat (5/5, Reichard, subscription required) also covers the story.

Measures To Increase Transparency In Healthcare Pricing Stall In The House.

CQ Today (5/7, Ethridge, subscription required) reports, "Efforts to rein in health care costs by promoting price transparency appeared to go nowhere in a House subcommittee hearing Thursday, despite bipartisan agreement that consumers need more information to make better health care decisions." Notably, "all three measures would require certain health care providers to disclose information on the cost of services, enabling consumers to make better-informed decisions. Sponsors say that without price transparency, patients are in the dark when they choose which health services to get and where to get them." CQ points out that previously, insurers objected to providing pricing information on the Internet, but on Thursday, an AHIP spokesman said, "Providing greater transparency on the prices charged for medical services will help to shine a spotlight on what is one of the main drivers of rising health care costs."

CQ HealthBeat (5/7, Reichard, subscription required) also reports, "Democrats and Republicans may agree that consumers need more information to compare the prices of health care services, but the spirit of bipartisanship was not in full bloom at a House subcommittee hearing Thursday that considered several bills on the subject." CQ adds, "Greater consumer awareness of the price of health care services could help Americans get better deals and make the health care system more efficient, [Frank] Pallone [D-NJ] said, but he added that price disclosure must be handled in the right way." Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers, "their anger unabated about passage of the health care overhaul law, spent a fair chunk of their time slamming that measure."

Modern Healthcare (5/7, DoBias, subscription required) notes that Pallone "said he would not commit to advancing legislation that requires providers, payers and vendors to publicly disclose the cost of their services." Modern Healthcare points out that one of the bills "requires hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacies and a range of manufacturers and vendors to openly disclose prices."