Health Care Reform: An Overview and Its Long-Term Financial Effects
by: Nancy A. Peterman [1]
Greenberg Traurig LLP; Chicago
The proposals for comprehensive health care reform currently being considered by the U.S. Congress are extensive. Comprehensive reform will likely cost between $800 billion and $900 billion. To pay for this undertaking, Congress is fundamentally restructuring tax policy, provider payments and insurance markets.
Long-Term Health Care Facilities Continue to Face Financial Challenges
by: Bindu Liang
Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP; Nashville, Tenn.
Long-term care facilities continue to be battered by a barrage of financial challenges, and there seems to be no end in sight. Most recently and at the forefront in today’s news is the impact of the proposed health care reform on long-term care facilities. In the best-case scenario, long-term care facilities are facing further reductions in cost-of-living increases after receiving a pittance of the federal bailout funds given to states for funding Medicare. This is just more bad news for an industry that is still struggling to compensate for a yearly 3.3 percent reduction in Medicare rates beginning in 2008 that will result in direct cuts of at least $16 billion over the next decade.
The Impact of Health Care Reform on the Hospital Industry
by: Edward J. Green & Caroline Lavelle
Foley & Lardner LLP; Chicago
Following a year of extreme economic turmoil, lawmakers in Washington have turned their attention to the reform of an industry that the Wall Street Journal called “one of the brightest spots in an otherwise gloomy economy”—the health care industry. For months, lawmakers have been busy debating the value of health care reform and the need to implement changes that will extend coverage to uninsured Americans. Though Congress has yet to reach a resolution, proposals have raised concerns with certain hospitals, such as safety-net hospitals and physician-owned specialty hospitals about whether they will be able to operate in a post-reform environment. Reform proposals may also leave nonprofit hospitals scrambling to justify their tax-exempt status.
Brotman Medical Center: A Successful Partnership Between a Debtor and a Patient Care Ombudsman
by: David N. Crapo
Gibbons P.C.; Newark, N.J.
The addition of §333 to the Bankruptcy Code as part of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA)generated significant controversy because it mandates the appointment of a patient care ombudsman (PCO) if the debtor is a health care business, unless the court finds that “the appointment of such ombudsman is not necessary for the protection of patients under the specific facts of the case.” The major criticisms of §333 have been (1) the ambiguity surrounding the requirements of §333, (2) how to define and measure quality during bankruptcy and (3) the potential for substantially increasing the expense of an already financially-strapped health care provider’s reorganization, perhaps scuttling any chance at reorganization at all. The Brotman Medical Center case demonstrates how the PCO and a debtor health care provider can work together toward a successful reorganization.