| Advocacy |
House Appropriations Subcommittee for the Department of Community Health (DCH) Hearing
Public Hearing regarding the FY 2010 State Budget
for DCH
Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital
East Auditorium
May 4, 2009, 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
VHP member, Spectrum Health, is hosting the above subcommittee hearing with Representative Gary McDowell, Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for the Department of Community Health. Rep. McDowell's legislative area includes the Petoskey area. Northern Michigan Regional Health System has been instrumental in engaging Rep. McDowell.
At this time, the budget will be in the Senate; however, Rep. McDowell wanted to hold this hearing prior to when the FY10 budget bill will be sent to the Conference Committee. He will be chair of that conference committee.
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Appropriations Subcommittee for DCH |
Appropriations Committee |
Full House
Vote |
Appropriations Subcommittee for DCH |
Appropriations Committee |
Full Senate Vote |
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House |
Senate |
The DCH budget passed out of the House into the Senate on Weds with 64 Dems and 1 GOP voting for it and 42 GOPs and 2 Dems voting against it.
Our $1M placeholder for DSH is still in the budget.
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| Community |
| May 15 VHP Community Meeting
The May 15 meeting will focus on determining high and low value when reviewing community health programs. Members are collecting organizational criteria that service lines use to expand or contract their service. The service line criteria will be a good guide for community health programmers to use. |
| Value Maximization |
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Value Maximization Director Position We are in the process of reviewing applications for our Value Maximization Director position. The process is still open so if you know of anyone interested, send them to Mary Kay. |
| Interesting News! |
| Lawmakers release "options paper" focusing on delivery system reform
The AP (4/29, Alonso-Zaldivar, Werner) reports, "Doctors and hospitals would see big changes in how they're paid and what they're expected to do under proposals lawmakers will consider Wednesday as they narrow options for healthcare legislation." The Finance Committee will meet to "review policy options aimed at making medical providers more accountable for the quality of care." These options, laid out in a 48-page paper, were released yesterday by Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA). Baucus has said that "delivery system reform -- reimbursing providers on the basis of quality, not volume," is the key to health reform.
CQ HealthBeat (4/28) noted that "Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and ranking Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley...late Tuesday afternoon released a paper outlining policy options for reducing costs and improving quality in a healthcare overhaul."
The Los Angeles Times (4/29, Levey) reports, "Pushing to change how medicine is paid for as part of a sweeping overhaul of the nation's healthcare system, two leading senators offered a plan Tuesday to pay more to hospitals and doctors who meet federal quality standards and penalize those who do not." Although legislation is "probably months from being introduced," yesterday's paper "suggests the senior members of the Senate Finance Committee have reached some bipartisan agreement about how the federal government should pay providers through its Medicare program," something that "could be the model for revamping the private healthcare system."
In the Boston Globe (4/28) Political Intelligence blog, Lisa Wangsness wrote, "The first pieces of what will become sweeping legislation to overhaul the nation's healthcare system have arrived at last." The "first set of 'options' focus on many of the less contentious aspects of the healthcare legislation -- improving quality of care and controlling soaring healthcare costs." Besides its focus on quality over quantity of care, the "options" also call for "making a stronger commitment to comparative effectiveness research -- a systematic effort to discover through coordinated scientific research which treatments work best for which patients. |
