Healthcare Digest 5/14: Sebelius Door-to-Door for Healthcare Fundraising

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been hoping to raise additional funds “to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law.” Sort of like a band camp fundraiser — but so much more important.

Oof. You guys.

If you’re partial to this administration, and willing to extend some empathy, then you might point some fingers of blame at Congress, a body that has “rejected the Obama administration’s requests” for the extra dollars needed.

Hence, Sibelius’s door-to-door campaign.

She’s been focusing primarily on “health industry executives, community organizations and church groups.” Her push: getting these executives to “contribute whatever they can to nonprofit groups that are working to enroll uninsured Americans and increase awareness of the law.”

Republicans, of course, see Sibelius’s actions as “improper” because of course they do. However, others, too, are looking askance. Meredith McGehee, policy director for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which researches government ethics issues, said she was troubled by Sebelius’s activities because the secretary seemed to be “using the power of government to compel giving or insinuate that giving is going to be looked at favorably by the government.”

Senator Orrin Hatch — the Senate’s resident Angela Lansbury — said in a statement. “I will be seeking more information from the administration about these actions to help better understand whether there are conflicts of interest and if it violated federal law.”

Tuesday’s Headlines

Spotlight on the IRS: “The nonpartisan IRS is charged with some of the law’s most important functions, such as distributing tax credits and enforcing the individual mandate to buy health insurance. IRS duties on healthcare were bound to be politically charged given the controversy surrounding the law, which remains divisive with the public. Now the IRS’s job has become even more difficult given the certainty of an investigation into the agency’s scrutiny of conservative groups.” [The Hill]

How Hospitals Could Lose $500M in Federal Funds: “Hospitals nationwide could lose half a billion dollars in federal funding for uninsured patients next year under the national health overhaul — a loss that will hit especially hard in states that decided against expanding Medicaid coverage. Cuts could jump to $4 billion in 2020, according to estimates released Monday by federal health officials.” [AP]

I’m Told This Makes Sense: “So, responding to both the Seeking Alpha reader request and Ycharts.com migration to an eleven sector list, this report provided three actionable conclusions about the highest yield (dividend / price) stocks from the Morningstar/YCharts (M/Y) sectors: basic materials; communication services; consumer cyclical; consumer defensive; energy; financial services; healthcare; industrials; real estate; technology; utilities.” [Seeking Alpha]

Want to Build a Better Healthcare Board? Here’s How!: “Whether boards are too large, too unwieldy, or have members who are underqualified to effectively provide strategic direction, many of them need help to deal with the new realities of healthcare.” [HealthLeadersMedia.com]

How Florida Lawmakers Get Cheap Health Insurance: “Florida House Republicans last month loudly and proudly rejected billions of dollars in federal money that would have provided health insurance to 1 million poor Floridians. Quietly, they kept their own health insurance premiums staggeringly low. House members will pay just $8.34 a month for state-subsidized health care next year, or $30 a month to cover their entire family.” [Miami Herald]

Medical Debt Reform: “There’s at least one thing Congressional Republicans and Democrats agree on, and it’s that medical debt is a problem. Members of Congress and their staff recognize that medical bills are confusing and prone to errors—and the debts can hurt creditworthy consumers by constraining their access to credit.” [Forbes.com]