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Cartoon – Not Lies but Spin!
Oral arguments to be heard in birth control coverage case
A federal judge in California will hear oral arguments today in a case that could decide whether employers can refuse to provide certain health services that go against their religious beliefs.
Following a 2011 HHS mandate that required employers to provide certain health care — including birth control and emergency contraception — the Catholic nonprofit Little Sisters of the Poor sued in 2013 to be exempt from the rule, but five years and lengthy court battles later, the case is still ongoing.
New HHS rules created in 2017 allowed for religious exemptions for employers, including the group run by nuns, but 13 states and the District of Columbia sued to block the rules.
Two judges in January temporarily blocked the rules from going into effect, and today’s hearing will decide whether those injunctions will stay in place.
Trump administration adds new restrictions for fetal tissue research
The Trump administration eliminated funding for fetal tissue medical research by government scientists on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The decision is considered a win for anti-abortion rights supporters and a major blow to scientists who rely on the tissue from elective abortions for research into diseases like cancer, HIV and Zika, the Washington Post reports.
Government to start posting list of troubled nursing homes
https://www.apnews.com/c8e1e70253fb405e8fe13cd7b2eda70f
In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Sen.Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks to reporters in the studio of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. For years the federal government for years has kept under wraps the names of hundreds of nursing homes around the country found to have serious health, safety or sanitary problems. Lawmakers say the silence calls into question the government’s commitment to families going through the difficult process of finding a nursing home for a loved one. The secrecy began to crack Monday when two U.S. senators from Pennsylvania released the government’s list.
In a turnabout, the government said Wednesday it will start posting a list of some 400 troubled nursing homes , days after senators released the “secret” document along with a report questioning oversight of poor-quality facilities.
Dr. Kate Goodrich, chief medical officer with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency soon will post the list and update it regularly. She didn’t set a date.
“We are working actively to get the list posted,” Goodrich told reporters, saying that attention focused on the issue “has amplified a very important national dialogue on nursing home quality.”
The Associated Press reported Monday that Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., had found that conditions at the 400 facilities were “indistinguishable” from those at about 80 poor-performing nursing homes that are publicly identified by the government and undergo an additional level of inspections.
In a statement, Casey welcomed the commitment to post the list, but said more work is needed to make sure the government’s program to improve poor-performing nursing homes is running properly and has enough financing.
About 1.3 million Americans live in nursing homes, with more than 15,700 such facilities nationwide. The troubled nursing homes that Casey and Toomey identified are part of the government’s Special Focus Facility program, representing about 3 percent of all homes.
Budget cuts appear to be contributing to the problem by reducing money available for focused inspections, according to documents and interviews.
Agency officials say they currently only have enough money for 88 slots in the special focus program. Those facilities are publicly identified. Consumers can spot them on the government’s Nursing Home Compare website by looking for an icon that resembles a traffic “caution” sign.
But a larger group of some 400 nursing homes are designated as “candidates” for the program, and their names have not been publicly disclosed. The agency says that’s now about to change.
It pushed back against the suggestion it was keeping secrets, saying its nursing home website uses starred ratings that allow consumers to readily identify troubled facilities. Nursing homes with five stars have much better than average quality and nursing homes with a single star are considered to be much below average. Nationwide, there are about 2,900 of the latter.
Goodrich said starred ratings are the best way for consumers to get a sense of quality, but the senators’ report concluded that the ratings can be misleading. For example, nearly 3 in 10 of the 400 “candidate” nursing homes with problems had two stars out of five overall.
The government spends about $400 million a year on all Medicare-related inspections, and Goodrich said most of that goes for nursing home checks. The Trump administration has asked Congress for nearly $45 million more.
Organizers: Johns Hopkins Reaches Settlement With Nurses Seeking To Unionize
Johns Hopkins Hospital has reached a settlement with registered nurses seeking to unionize, their national organizing committee said.
“This settlement makes clear that nurses have the right to form a union, we have a right to speak with our coworkers about a union, and Johns Hopkins does not have the legal right to target and intimidate nurses who engage in union activity,” registered nurse Alex Laslett said in a statement. “We are organizing at Johns Hopkins because we know a union affords nurses the protection we need to advocate freely for the best care for our patients.”
Hopkins reached a settlement of claims filed by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United with the National Labor Relations Board. The board found that the hospital created the impression that union activity would lead to surveillance and unlawful surveillance. The hospital enforced a rule barring nurses access to break rooms in connection with union activity and prohibited nurses from talking about the union at work, the NLRB found.
The settlement requires management to post signs throughout the hospital affirming nurses’ right to unionize. Those signs must be in place by June 14.
“In Catholic social teaching, we teach and believe that all workers have a fundamental human right to organize and to form unions and when an employer such as Johns Hopkins violates this fundamental right, they are acting unjustly and must be held accountable,” Father Ty Hullinger, a pastor in East Baltimore and a member of the Coalition for a Humane Hopkins, said in a statement. “This settlement puts Johns Hopkins on notice that the community is watching their actions and holding them to a standard that is moral and just.”
Officials with the national union said nursing staff at Hopkins asked for help organizing a union to address high turnover due to poor staffing, inadequate equipment and low pay.
UPMC halts prepayment plan for Highmark Medicare Advantage members
The plan would have required those members to pay in full for out-of-network visits to UPMC hospitals and physician offices.
Highmark Medicare Advantage members will not have to pay in advance for medical services at UPMC hospitals and physician offices that will be out of network if the UPMC-Highmark consent decrees are allowed to expire June 30.
UPMC officials informed the Pennsylvania Insurance Department of the change Wednesday, according to a news release on UPMC’s website. They had said in late 2018 that UPMC would require patients with out-of-network Medicare Advantage plans to pay in advance for any nonemergency treatment and then seek reimbursement from their insurer.
In addition, UPMC will accept direct payment from Highmark for out-of-network emergency care at the same rate UPMC Health Plan now pays Highmark’s Allegheny Health Network hospitals, including Saint Vincent Hospital.
“As the consent decrees near their end on June 30, our intent is to ensure that Highmark members can receive emergency and other care that they need without being caught in the middle of billing issues created by their insurer,” UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said in the news release.
UPMC’s decision came after federal officials said they might be taking a closer look at UPMC’s prepayment policy, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
UPMC will bill Highmark directly for its Medicare Advantage members who use out-of-network services and will accept reimbursement at the Medicare fee schedule amount, UPMC said in the news release.
The announcement comes about a week before a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court judge will hold a hearing in Harrisburg regarding the state attorney general’s office’s attempt to modify and extend the consent decrees past June 30. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
HENRY KOTULA 