Enzi targets HHS regulations, House will consider medical debt relief legislation

CongressDaily reports that Senate Republicans are trying to stop the health care law "one rule at a time." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to table the resolution from Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., regarding the law's "grandfathering" rule, "which allows plans that existed before March 23, 2010 — the date the healthcare law was signed — to be exempt from certain consumer protections enacted in the law, as long as plans do not significantly reduce benefits or raise consumer costs. ... Enzi argues the provision breaks President Obama's frequent promise that Americans could keep their health insurance if they liked it. 'An estimated 80 percent of small businesses are expected to lose their grandfathered status based upon the regulations the Administration wrote,' Enzi said" (9/28).

The Hill's Healthwatch Blog reports that the House will consider a bill to prevent past, paid "medical debts from affecting consumers' credit scores. … Sponsored by Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio), the proposal would prohibit credit-rating agencies from considering past medical debts when calculating those scores" (Lillis, 9/27).

The Associated Press reports that Indian health officials Tuesday will answer questions at a Senate hearing about "mismanagement and possible criminal behavior at a regional office that serves four Midwestern states. The chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee began an investigation last summer after years of complaints about poor patient care, mismanagement and long-term vacancies at the Aberdeen Area of the Indian Health Service, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska" (Daly, 9/28).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.