A White House report details how cuts mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act will affect federal programs, including Medicare. If Congress doesn’t act to soon, deep cuts will be made in nearly all federal programs – including those under the Affordable Care Act. Doctors and nurses warned that sequestration’s 2% cut to Medicare could result in the loss of nearly 500,000 jobs in the first year alone.
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And the Health and Human Services department is under scrutiny. Some House Republicans claim the administration has failed to release the final rules on health insurance exchanges because the feds want greater control of the health system. While states must notify HHS by Nov. 6 if they plan to run an exchange, currently, there are no federal regulations to guide them.
Meanwhile, HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius was called out by a government ethics panel for bringing politics into her official duties. Ms. Sebelius commented on the need to re-elect President Obama during an official speed in February. The panel said she’d violated federal law and HHS reclassified her trip as political.
For details on that and more, check out this week’s Policy & Practice Podcast.
--Frances Correa (@FMCReporting)