HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Unless a Congressional miracle occurs, Medicare reimbursement for physicians will decrease by 2% as $85 billion worth of automatic, across-the-board budget cuts called sequestration take effect on March 1 for the current fiscal year. Organized medicine is complaining not only about reduced pay, which could push struggling medical practices further into a hole.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Gov. Chris Christie, one of the most strident Republican critics of President Obama’s health care overhaul, announced on Tuesday that he would accept federal money to expand the Medicaid program in New Jersey. Mr. Christie emphasized that it was a financial decision, not a philosophical shift; if New Jersey did not take the money, he said, the federal government would give it to other states.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: About 30% of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals, a large and rigorous new study has found. The findings were published on The New England Journal of Medicine’s Web site on Monday.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee’s Tuesday hearing will focus on Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service program “and consider ideas to update and improve the benefit structure to better meet the needs of current and future beneficiaries,” according to a news release. Subcommittee chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said the hearing would help the panel “investigate the limitations, inefficiencies and inadequacies of traditional Medicare’s cost-sharing structure and identify ways to bring the Medicare program in to the 21st Century.”

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Under pressure from the health care industry and consumer advocates, 7 Republican governors are cautiously moving to expand Medicaid, giving an unexpected boost to President Obama’s plan to insure some 30 million more Americans. These states include Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Health-insurance plans that cover tens of millions of Americans will have to pay for mental-health and substance-abuse treatments starting next year under federal rules the Obama administration finalized yesterday.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: It's official. The Obama administration will be running new health insurance marketplaces in half the states— including the major population centers of Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania. The federal government had hoped more states this week would agree to form a partnership exchange—the deadline to apply was Friday—but the offer was largely rebuffed.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Friday was the final day for States to decide whether they will create their own health insurance exchanges, partner with the federal government partner with the federal government or allow the federal government to do it for them.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: An Obama administration official told Congress on Thursday that the government would be ready to enroll millions of people in private health insurance plans this fall, but senators of both parties expressed doubts.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: One of the nation’s largest nurses’ unions — the National Federation of Nurses — plans to announce on Thursday that it will affiliate with the far larger American Federation of Teachers. Barbara Crane, the president of the nurses’ federation, said her group’s national board voted to join forces with the teachers’ union to give the nurses more political clout and money to try to unionize more nurses.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: A sharp and surprisingly persistent slowdown in the growth of health care costs is helping to narrow the federal deficit, leaving budget experts trying to figure out whether the trend will last and how much the slower growth could help alleviate the country’s long-term fiscal problems. In figures released last week, the Congressional Budget Office said it had erased hundreds of billions of dollars in projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Efforts to curb rising healthcare costs will cause the use of telehealth technology to spike, a new analysis predicted. IMS Research, which studies the electronics industry, forecast a nearly sixfold rise in the number of telehealth patients over the next five years. About 1.3 million U.S. patients will use communications technology to interact with doctors by 2017.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: The Obama administration has delayed by one year the rollout of a health program aimed at low to moderate-income people who won’t qualify for the expanded Medicaid program under the federal health law. Under the so-called Basic Health Program, some states had planned to offer government insurance to people who don’t qualify for Medicaid, but who would be hard pressed — even with federal subsidies — to afford the premiums and cost-sharing of plans offered in the new insurance marketplaces. 

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Signing up an estimated 30 million uninsured Americans for coverage under the health care law is shaping up to be, if not a bureaucratic nightmare, at the very least a daunting task. While some people will find registering for health insurance as easy as booking a flight online, vast numbers who are confused by the myriad choices will need to sit down with someone who can walk them through the process.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: On Friday, CMS released the final 'Sunshine Act' Rule that will expose financial relationships drug and device makers have with doctors. The rules apply to all drugs and devices paid for by the federal government's major health care programs. All cash and in-kind gifts given to doctors for research, speaking fees, meals and travel are required to be disclosed. Likewise, doctors' investments in companies must also be revealed.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: A health insurance industry report to be released today highlights the exorbitant fees charged by some doctors to out-of-network patients. The report, by America’s Health Insurance Plans contrasts some of the highest bills charged by non-network providers in 30 states with Medicare rates for the same services. Some of the charges, the insurers assert, are 30, 40 or nearly 100 times greater than Medicare rates.