HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: Speculation continues about the number of people who will be "residually uninsured" after the new health overhaul provision kicks in. McKinsey and Co.'s Center for U.S. Health System Reform estimates the amount could be as high as 30 to 40 million people.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: When examining your health benefits for the new year, you'll probably notice that your plan has eliminated lifetime and most annual dollar limits on coverage. That was mandated by the federal health-care overhaul. But for some consumers, coverage may still be restricted: Limits on the number of doctor visits or prescriptions or other services continue to be permitted and can stymie patients' efforts to get necessary care.

HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: Starting Jan. 1, under a new end-of-life policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over "death panels," Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1. Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: New, proposed regulations — which result from the health overhaul — were issued yesterday by the Department of Health and Human Services and would require health insurers to justify proposed double-digit premium increases. In addition, administration officials signaled their plan to step-up their reviews of insurance rates if state regulators are not adequately protecting consumers.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: A Senate deal to fund the federal government until early March doesn't include money to enact the health-care overhaul or stepped up regulation of Wall Street, boosting Republican efforts to curb key elements of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: Highly anticipated regulations defining what constitutes "unreasonable" health insurance premium increases are expected any day now that federal regulators have sent them to the Office of Management and Budget for final review. Democrats' health care reform law gives the federal government greater oversight of health insurance premium increases by requiring a review and justification of steep increases. The law requires health plans to publicly justify "unreasonable" rate hikes starting with 2010 plan years, and gives states power to shut health insurers out of state health insurance exchanges starting in 2014.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: A federal court judge heard oral arguments Thursday surrounding the 20-state challenge to the health overhaul. At issue are two key elements of the new law: its mandate requiring that almost everyone have health insurance and its expansions of the Medicaid program.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: Under a little-known provision of the health overhaul law, insurers will be required to provide their benefits information on a standardized chart using the same plain English terms as other companies to help shoppers understand and compare complicated policies. Congress even listed some of the insurance jargon – including terms such as deductible, preferred provider, excluded services and UCR (usual, customary and reasonable) – that must be defined in a glossary that will accompany the benefit summary.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: The Justice Department said Tuesday it intends to appeal to a U.S. District Court judge's ruling declaring a key part of President Obama's health care law unconstitutional. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals would get the case that originated in Virginia when the state filed a lawsuit saying the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and insuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below. Judge Henry Hudson declined the plaintiff's request to freeze implementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: Five of the nation's largest health insurance companies are taking a key step toward building their own inside-the-Beltway coalition to influence implementation of the new health law and congressional efforts to change it. The companies – Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint – are shopping around Washington for a public relations firm to represent them, according to a source familiar with their work. Public Strategies and APCO are among PR firms that have spoken with the insurers.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: The Red Flags Rule requires creditors and certain businesses to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs to help identify, detect and respond to patterns, practices or specific activities that could indicate identity theft. This week the House of Representatives passed S3987 that clarifies the definition of a creditor and in effect would exempt health care providers from the Red Flags Rule. The President is expected to sign the bill before the Red Flags Rule goes into effect on January 1, 2011.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: The House gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that would avert a 25 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors by freezing reimbursement rates at current levels until the end of next year. The bill goes now to President Obama, who hailed the action by Congress and promised to sign the legislation. The House vote was 409 to 2. The Senate approved the measure by unanimous consent on Wednesday.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: A report released today from the National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health and Science University reveals that more women are binge drinking, saying they downed five or more drinks at a single occasion in the past month, and fewer are being screened for cervical cancer. Over all, more women are obese, diabetic and hypertensive than just a few years ago, and more are testing positive for chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease linked to infertility.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: In an unintended consequence of the new health care law, drug companies have begun notifying children’s hospitals around the country that they no longer qualify for large discounts on drugs used to treat rare medical conditions. As a result, prices are going up for these specialized “orphan drugs,” some of which are also used to treat more common conditions. The FDA classifies more than 350 medicines as orphan drug products. Manufacturers said they could not recover the costs of developing such drugs if they were required to sell them at deeply discounted prices. A House Democrat who worked on the health care law said the situation had resulted from “an honest mistake in drafting,” and he added, “No one intended to take away any of the drug discounts that children’s hospitals already had.” The discount program is widely known as the 340B program, after the relevant section of the Public Health Service Act.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: Senate leaders have reached a tentative, one-year deal on the Medicare “doc-fix,” sources close to the negotiations say. The deal pays for the must-pass patch to prevent a deep cut in Medicare doctors’ payments with changes in the tax subsidy program that some consumers will use after 2014 to buy health insurance on the new exchanges. The rest of the Senate was to review the deal Monday night with hopes of passing it with a unanimous consent agreement later this week, possibly on Wednesday. But it could get pushback from liberal Democrats in the House or Senate. Democrats are under pressure to pass a full-year patch of the doc-fix during the lame duck session, because Republicans are already eyeing it as a vehicle to tie to repeal efforts in the next congress.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: An Office of Personnel Management plan to launch a comprehensive database of federal workers' health care records has raised the ire of some privacy advocates, employee unions and consumer groups. OPM is organizing a research database of insurance claims filed by the eight million workers and dependents enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, as well as participants in two other federally administered programs. The claims data, which will be supplied by the private insurers that participate in the FEHBP, will help OPM figure out ways to lower costs, improve quality and fight fraud, the agency has said.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: The state Department of Insurance, after a rare public hearing, has rejected the 20% rate increase sought by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield for individual market plans that cover some 48,000 clients, a decision that maintains the current premium prices. This is a great victory for insurance consumers in the state of Connecticut, said Healthcare Advocate Kevin Lembo, who said the ruling calls into question increases approved earlier in this fall, in which one plan saw a 47% rate increase. ... Anthem spokeswoman Sarah Yeager said the insurer was reviewing the ruling and said it shares the concerns 'of our members over the rising cost and rate of utilization of health care services and the corresponding adverse impact on insurance premiums.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: News outlets report that as the presidential debt commission plans to vote today, the final recommendations could shape the debate on how budgeteers treat Medicare, Medicaid and health care costs in the future -- regardless of the vote tally.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: The Red Flags Rule requires creditors and certain businesses to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs to help identify, detect and respond to patterns, practices or specific activities that could indicate identity theft. The applicability of the rule to health care providers has been debated over the past several months. On Tuesday, the Senate passed legislation that would exempt health care providers from the Red Flags Rule.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: It’s official. The drug industry’s chief lobbyists - the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America - raised and spent at least $101.2 million in 2009 on advocacy efforts during the contentious health care debate, according to IRS documents the group filed in mid-November.

HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: For the second time in two months, a federal judge in Virginia has upheld the constitutionality of the new health care law, ruling on Tuesday that the requirement that most Americans obtain medical coverage falls within Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce. The judge, Norman K. Moon of Federal District Court, who sits in Lynchburg, Va., issued a 54-page ruling that granted the government’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Liberty University, the private Christian college founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Last month, in a separate case, Judge George C. Steeh of Federal District Court in Detroit also upheld the law.