The Associated Press reports on the details in the York Daily Record:

Opponents warn that millions of middle- and low-income women who receive partial subsidies to buy insurance would be denied abortion coverage. They said most providers were unlikely to set up two separate plans, one with abortion coverage.

The legislation also strengthens conscience protections for anti-abortion health care providers. Again there is divergence between bill supporters saying they are merely clarifying existing law and opponents saying it will lead to hospitals denying emergency care to pregnant women.

The legislation revives the debate that almost scuttled the health care act. Former Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., leading a rebellion of anti-abortion Democrats, joined Pitts in pushing through an amendment that imposed tight restrictions on abortions in the proposed government-run insurance plan. When the Senate wouldn’t go along, Stupak got Obama to sign an executive order reaffirming the Hyde Amendment, a 1976 provision named after the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., that bans all federal funds for abortion except in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk.

The grants come on the heels of new rules that require insurers to post on their websites explanations of premium increases exceeding 10% and to justify the hikes to state and federal regulators, who also will post them starting this year.

The grants continue the administration’s efforts to step up regulation of health insurance markets by bolstering state regulators, who retain responsibility for overseeing the industry.

“We absolutely expect for this … to help have a moderating influence on premiums,” said Steve Larsen, who oversees the insurance efforts at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Some states, such as Oregon and Rhode Island, have the power to block rate hikes they deem excessive. But 30 states still don’t have this authority in both the individual and small-group markets, according to a 2010 survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. The federal government doesn’t have the power to reject premium increases.

The Obama administration has urged states to pass legislation giving them veto authority over rates.

The administration downplayed concerns when The Associated Press reported on the glitch this summer. Officials then acknowledged a fix was needed.

The problem began after the health care law changed Medicaid rules so Social Security benefits would no longer count as income, as they do now.

Because of the glitch, married early retirees making $64,000 a year could qualify for Medicaid. Medicare’s top number cruncher, Richard Foster, said that situation didn’t make sense but policymakers weren’t interested in addressing it.

The fix saves taxpayers $14.6 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Obama proposed higher premiums and deductibles for many Medicare beneficiaries and lower Medicare payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. He would start charging co-payments to frail homebound older people who receive home health services. And he would reduce the growth of federal payments to states for treating low-income people under Medicaid.

The White House said Mr. Obama’s proposals would cut $248 billion from the projected growth of Medicare in the next 10 years, while shaving $72 billion from Medicaid and other health programs. A large share of the Medicare savings would, in effect, be used to pay doctors, who would otherwise face deep cuts in the fees they receive for treating Medicare patients.

Those who realize the toll of Alzheimer’s, however, are doing something about it– making recommendations to the Obama administration for its developing National Alzheimer’s Plan.

Reports the Associated Press:

“[Alzheimer's ] sufferers lose the ability to do the simplest activities of daily life and can survive that way for a decade or more, requiring years of care from family, friends or paid caregivers. Already a recent report finds that nearly 15 million people, mostly family members, are providing more than $200 billion worth of unpaid care.

Thousands of those caregivers have turned out at public meetings since early August — and at a “telephone town meeting” organized by the Alzheimer’s Association that drew 32,000 people — pleading for a national Alzheimer’s strategy to bring changes.

They want primary care doctors trained to diagnose dementia earlier, describing how years of missed symptoms cost them precious time to make plans or seek treatment. That’s a recommendation being echoed Tuesday in an international Alzheimer’s report.

They demand to know why the National Institutes of Health spends about six times more on AIDS research than on Alzheimer’s, when there are good drugs to battle back the HIV virus but nothing comparable for dementia.

Overwhelmingly, they ask for resources to help Alzheimer’s patients live their last years at home without ruining their caregivers’ own health and finances.

“Either you’re rich and can afford $25 an hour for care at home, or you send him to a facility. We’re in the middle of the road,” says Shirley Rexrode of suburban San Francisco, whose 85-year-old father, Hsien-Wen Li, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s nearly three years ago.

Adult day care didn’t work out — even at $90 a day, the only place with an opening couldn’t handle the behaviors of Alzheimer’s. Rexrode says her mother, Li’s primary caregiver, has suffered some depression from the stress.

“We just have to muddle through, but we don’t know how long we can,” Rexrode says.”

Also, check out a story published today by Reuter’s, which reveals that most cases of dementia are not diagnosed:

About 28 million of the nearly 36 million people living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias have not been diagnosed, robbing them from the benefit of treatments and the chance to have a say in their future care, according to a report released Tuesday.

It found that many people are not diagnosed with dementia until the disease is well advanced.

“Failure to diagnose Alzheimer’s in a timely manner represents a tragic missed opportunity to improve the quality of life for millions of people,” said Dr. Daisy Acosta, chairman of Alzheimer’s Disease International, a patient advocacy group that sponsored the study.

The group last year estimated that Alzheimer’s and other dementias cost $604 billion globally to treat, a figure that will soar as the number of sufferers triples by 2050.

Obama administration officials are expected Wednesday to unveil simple, standardized information forms health insurers and employers will be required to use beginning next year. 

The forms are intended to describe benefits and costs in the same easy-to-understand terms so that consumers can comparison shop for the best coverage. The materials will include a four-page benefits summary, a list of commonly used terms, and two pages of coverage fact labels – modeled after the nutrition labels on prepared foods – that show how much a plan pays for the average national cost of some common medical conditions. The federal health law says the materials must be printed in at least 12-point type, larger than the type in a typical newspaper article. 

Read more from Kaiser Health News

“Congressional Democrats, on the defensive for months on federal spending issues, see an opportunity to seize the political initiative by pushing to the forefront a House Republican plan to overhaul Medicare.

In a sign of the his party’s emboldened posture, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said Wednesday he would soon bring the House measure to a Senate vote.

The point would be to challenge Republicans in the chamber to embrace the proposal to end Medicare’s benefit guarantees for people currently younger than 55.”

Find out more at the Wall Street Journal

“President Obama has deep disagreements with House Republicans about how to address Medicare’s long-term problems. But in deciding to wade into the fight over entitlements, which he may address in a speech Wednesday afternoon, the president is signaling that he too believes Medicare must change to avert a potentially crippling fiscal crunch.

So the real issue now is not so much whether to re-engineer Medicare to deal with an aging population and rising medical costs, but how.”

Visit the New York Times to Read more

The new healthcare legislation seeks to amend this problem by first issuing $250 checks to affected seniors. Starting next year, seniors will receive a 50% discount on medicine, and by 2020, this discount will reach 75%.

To read the complete article, click here.

Dozens of seniors at the White Rose Senior Center, both curious and skeptical about what the Affordable Care Act means for health care reform, took part in a national tele-town hall meeting Tuesday morning.

While some sat close to the television screen, with a notepad in hand, listening closely to President Barack Obama, others sat in the back of the room playing cards quietly with their peers — pausing to listen when something sparked their interest.

Nonetheless, all seniors were there for the same purpose: to grasp a better understanding on health care reform.

Learn more.