By Anne Tergesen; MarketWatch ~ Mar 25, 2015

If you need a reminder that Medicare covers only a portion of retiree medical expenses, check out this report.

Released Wednesday by HealthView Services, Inc., a Danvers, Mass. company that provides retirement health care cost data and tools to financial advisers, it finds that a 66-year-old couple retiring this year with average Social Security benefits can expect medical costs to consume 67% of the Social Security they will receive in retirement.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar; The Associated Press ~ Mar 25, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — New momentum for a lasting fix to Medicare’s doctor-payment problem shows that lawmakers may finally be recognizing what has long bothered their constituents.

Year after year, the threat of 20-percent payment cuts averted at the last minute has seemed a curious way to run a program that lives depend on. A failed budget formula fed anxiety into the relationship between patients and doctors.

By Nedra Pickler; The Associated Press ~ Mar 25, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he’s ready to sign good bipartisan legislation to fix Medicare’s doctor payment problem, without endorsing any specific legislation.

Without a fix, doctors face a 21 percent cut in Medicare fees, the consequence of a 1990s budget law that Congress has repeatedly waived.

The House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill with rare support from both top leaders in the House that would permanently fix the problem. Obama backed the idea of a fix at a White House event marking this week’s five-year anniversary of his signing the Affordable Care Act, while stopping short of backing the House compromise.

By Nancy Shute; NPR ~ Mar 25, 2015

It would be nice to think that when you go in for surgery you’d be offered the safest, cheapest alternative, but that’s not always the case, a study finds.

Some hospitals are much more likely than others to offer minimally invasive surgery for procedures like colon or lung surgery or appendectomy, according to an analysis published Wednesday in JAMA Surgery.

By Susan Cornwell; Reuters ~ Mar 24, 2015

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Tuesday that prospects were good for passage of a permanent fix to Medicare’s flawed doctor-pay formula, a move that would spare physicians from impending pay cuts.

The Republican leader said the House was intent on avoiding another short-term repair like the ones resorted to previously.

The plan’s prospects brightened in the Senate, as well, when Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he would look at the bipartisan House proposal, which would change the way doctors are reimbursed for Medicare costs. It was introduced earlier on Tuesday by Boehner and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

By Doug Gross, Nerd Wallet; The Christian Science Monitor ~ Mar 24, 2015

A pair of lawsuits filed Monday are the first to challenge new “net neutrality” rules designed to guarantee open and equal access to the Internet.

USTelecom, a trade group that represents Internet service providers such as Verizon, Frontier and AT&T, filed a petition in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., arguing that the rules set by the Federal Communications Commission are “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”

And, in Texas, Alamo Broadband, a smaller Internet provider, filed in federal appeals court. The company’s petition looks familiar, using language that calls the FCC rules “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”

By Mirza Umair Baig; Tech News Today ~ Mar 24, 2015

For over a year, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) had been living in fear of injustice about whether the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) would put Internet providers and common carriers under the same set of rules. The fear turned into a blessing in disguise when FCC voted in actual to put the rules, i.e. Title II of Communications Act, as it caused AT&T to receive a refund amounting to millions of dollars primarily because of the rules that do not allow any unjust and unreasonable charges for telecommunication services.

By Randi Belisomo; Reuters ~ Mar 23, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters Health) – – Physician incentives are needed to improve end of life care in the U.S., health experts said Friday at an Institute of Medicine (IOM) forum.

The forum convened at the National Academy of Sciences to discuss action on the recommendations of the IOM’s seminal fall report, Dying in America.

“Our current system is not equipped to deal with these challenges,” said IOM President Victor Dzau, citing a rising number of elderly with multiple chronic illnesses, too few palliative care services to keep pace with demand, and time pressures that keep providers from having conversations with patients about end of life preferences and values.

By Robert Pear; The New York Times ~ Mar 22, 2015

WASHINGTON — Lobbyists will descend on Congress this week as lawmakers near a bipartisan agreement to finance health care for the oldest and youngest Americans, by revamping the payment of doctors under Medicare and by extending the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The agreement, negotiated by Speaker John A. Boehner and the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, would repeal a Medicare formula that threatens to cut doctors’ fees each year. In its place, Congress would establish an “incentive payment system” to reward doctors who receive high performance scores from the government. Scores would be based on factors like the ability to keep patients healthy while controlling costs.

By Sahil Kapur; Talking Points Memo ~ Mar 20, 2015

WASHINGTON — A top adviser to President Barack Obama on Friday slammed a House Republican maneuver aimed at forcing a showdown on Social Security as early as next year, signaling that it won’t fly with the White House.

“The House provision was un-constructive and at odds with how this issue has been addressed time and time again in a bipartisan manner,” Brian Deese, senior advisor to the president, told reporters at a breakfast downtown hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “It is just not tenable to walk away from what has been a very clear bipartisan approach to addressing the [disability fund] issue.”