There will be a Medicaid forum in Oak Ridge on Tuesday, January 17. It will feature a family physician, health care campaign director, pastor, and health care economics professor.
The forum will be presented by the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge.
The forum will be moderated by Zack Buck, associate professor of law at the University of Tennessee who specializes in health law, bioethics, and tort law.
Other guests will include:
[Read more…]
The second part of a forum about Medicaid expansion will be online at lunchtime Tuesday, featuring two legislators who have supported Medicaid expansion.
The legislators are Tennessee Senator Richard Briggs, a physician, and Representative Gloria Johnson, a retired educator.
The virtual forum is scheduled to start at noon Tuesday, November 16. You can register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting (learn more here).
Here is the Tuesday agenda:
[Read more…]
Protesters express their opposition to the health care vote in May by U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann, a Tennessee Republican, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Rocky Top post office on May 9, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
The U.S. Senate continued to debate a potential repeal of at least part of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,†on Thursday night. It’s not clear what the Senate will eventually approve.
It’s also not clear what type of agreement the Senate can reach with the U.S. House of Representatives, if the Senate passes a bill. The House has already passed its own bill, the American Health Care Act.
On Thursday night, the Senate debate was focused on a so-called “skinny repeal,†which would roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. It would repeal the mandates that most people have health insurance and that large employers cover their employees, but it would leave most of the health law in place, The New York Times reported.
It wasn’t clear if the Republican-controlled Senate had the votes to advance the legislation.
The vote on “skinny repeal†expected tonight comes after Senate Republicans were unable to reach consensus on broader legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and after an earlier repeal bill failed on Wednesday.
The health care debate in the Senate started with a 51-50 vote on Tuesday.
As the health care debate has played out in Congress this year, there has been some concern in Oak Ridge and Anderson County over the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010. It’s considered his signature domestic legislative achievement.
There has also been some concern here over possible Medicaid cuts. [Read more…]
Matt Tillery
A guest speaker at Lunch with the League on Tuesday will help decipher the “alphabet soup” of health care, a press release said.
Guest speaker Matt Tillery, director of community services for Cherokee Health Systems, will give a brief history of the Affordable Care Act, Tennessee’s Medicare and Medicaid programs, and resources available to those who are eligible for these services, the press release said.
Tillery will speak specifically on community mental health clinics and federally qualified health care centers, and what these types of service locations mean to community members, the press release said. The program will start at noon Tuesday, March 21, in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike. [Read more…]
Bill Haslam
NASHVILLE—Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam this month unveiled his Insure Tennessee plan, a two-year pilot program to provide health care coverage to Tennesseans who currently don’t have access to health insurance or have limited options. The program rewards healthy behaviors, prepares members to transition to private coverage, promotes personal responsibility, and incentivizes choosing preventative and routine care instead of unnecessary use of emergency rooms, a press release said.
The governor announced that he plans to call a special session to focus on the proposal after the 109th General Assembly convenes in January.
“We made the decision in Tennessee nearly two years ago not to expand traditional Medicaid,†Haslam said in the press release. “This is an alternative approach that forges a different path and is a unique Tennessee solution. This plan leverages federal dollars to provide health care coverage to more Tennesseans, to give people a choice in their coverage, and to address the cost of health care, better health outcomes, and personal responsibility. [Read more…]
Lamar Alexander
Bob Corker
Submitted
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Nine members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation sent a letter this month to Marilyn Tavenner, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requesting an extension of TennCare’s waiver approval from earlier this year.
Because Tennessee does not receive funding through the Medicaid disproportionate share hospital, or DSH, program that every other state participates in, the lawmakers are requesting continuing funds to support Tennessee hospitals that help tens of thousands of low-income patients receive medical coverage they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. Just last year, these hospitals provided $950 million in charity care and $720 million in unreimbursed medical services to low-income Tennesseans.
Unlike hospitals in every other state, Tennessee hospitals are unable to offset these expenses with the help of the Medicaid DSH program. [Read more…]
KNOXVILLE—The percentage of uninsured Tennesseans is at its lowest rate in a decade, according to a report released Monday by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
The report shows that 7.2 percent of Tennessee’s 6.5 million residents are uninsured, a 25 percent decrease from last year. The report also shows that 2.4 percent of children in the state are without insurance, a 35 percent decrease from last year.
The findings are included in “The Impact of TennCare: A Survey of Recipients 2014,” prepared by UT’s Center for Business and Economic Research, or CBER. The report’s authors are Angela Thacker, CBER research associate, and LeAnn Luna, CBER associate professor.
The declines coincide with the establishment of the Health Insurance Marketplace, which was put into place in early 2014 through the Affordable Care Act. The act also has had an impact on the state’s Medicaid program, TennCare, which has experienced the third highest new enrollment in its 20-year history. [Read more…]
A new state law is expected to provide relief to government budgets in mandated health care costs for inmates, a press release said.
Tennessee Senator Mike Bell, R-Riceville, and Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank recently held a news conference in Knoxville to discuss the benefits to taxpayers that will result from the legislation, the release said. They were joined by Candace Allen from the Helen Ross McNabb Center.
The press release said the legislation was a result of a brainstorming session sponsored by the Tennessee Association of Professional Bail Agents in East Tennessee late last year. Sheriffs, district attorneys, county executives, judges, corrections administrators, health professionals, and bail bondsmen representing more than 32 Tennessee counties gathered to discuss the shared concern of jail overcrowding and costs threatening county budgets across the state.
“This new law sets out a framework and legal basis for counties to reduce medical expenses for inmates who receive medical care outside of a jail,” said Bell, who is chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee. “While it does not solve all the issues surrounding the rapidly- increasing costs of incarceration in Tennessee, it will provide some immediate relief to government budgets that are spending more to address these issues at the detriment of other needs.” [Read more…]
To the Editor:
Some years ago, we cruised around on a small sailboat in the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina and spent one stormy night at the dock in Belhaven, N.C. So we perked up when we saw the mayor of Belhaven speak on the Lawrence O’Donnell Show on July 1 about the closing of the hospital there because the state will not expand Medicaid and the conglomerate that recently bought the hospital, instead of keeping its promises, for improvements, wants to close the hospital, leaving the residents of this Inner Banks town to fend for themselves and hope they can get to some other hospital from this remote small town when they have a heart attack or some other emergency.
The mayor of Belhaven says that the effect of closing the hospital in this town of 1,700 people is devastating economically to the town because of the number of people it has been employing, besides causing needless deaths among its citizenry.
I wonder if the state legislator for the 33rd District in Tennessee has given any thought to the real life-and-death consequences of the Tennessee Legislature’s inaction in expanding Medicaid. Is he aware that from one to three Tennesseans die each week because they do not have health care (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)? Is he aware that he and other legislators are literally responsible for the deaths of actual, real Tennesseans, economically disadvantaged people,who could be healthier and more productive if they were able to get health care on a regular basis? And who could expect just to live by getting health care? [Read more…]
Two orthopedic clinics in East Tennessee have agreed to pay a combined $1.85 million to resolve state and federal False Claims Act allegations that they knowingly billed state and federal health care programs for reimported osteoarthritis medications, known as viscosupplements, federal authorities said.
Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics, P.C., with headquarters in Knoxville and nine locations in East Tennessee, will pay $1.3 million and Appalachian Orthopaedic Clinics, P.C., with headquarters in Kingsport and three locations in the Tri-Cities area, will pay $550,000, according to a press release from  the U.S. Attorney William C. Killian said in a press release. Killian is U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Tennessee.
The press release said viscosupplements, such as Synvisc and Orthovisc, are injections approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of osteoarthritis pain in the knee. Viscosupplements are reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs at a set rate based on the average sales price of the domestic product. [Read more…]
David Holden
Submitted
David Holden, a manager at the Knoxville–Knox County Office on Aging, will speak on “How Changes in Medicare Regulations Will Affect You†at noon Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church.
The Health Luncheon program in the church’s Activities Building, Room 102, is free and open to the community. The lunch costs $5. Call (865) 483-1318 to make reservations and indicate whether you wish to buy lunch. [Read more…]
Bill Haslam
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam on Wednesday said he will not expand TennCare rolls under the Affordable Care Act.
Instead, the governor said, he wants to use federal dollars as part of a plan to purchase private health insurance for Tennesseans who would not otherwise have access to coverage.
In a Wednesday press release, Haslam called his plan “real health care reform.” [Read more…]
