Weekend update

Batten down the hatches!!  Just two weeks from tomorrow, Congress will return for its post-election lame duck session and the Federal Benefits Open Season will begin.

Autism Speaks followed up with a new press release that lists all of the FEHB plans that will cover applied behavioral analysis (ABA) therapy in 2013. Earlier this year OPM decided that ABA therapy is a medical rather than non-covered educational therapy.

The Affordable Care Act provides for OPM to contract for at least two multi-state plans that eventually will offer coverage in all of the state based health insurance exchanges. October 22 was OPM's deadline for public comment on the draft multi-state plan application. In an article in today's paper, the New York Times updates readers on the implementation process. "In preparing cost estimates, the Obama administration told insurers to assume that each national plan would have 750,000 people enrolled in the first year." The entire FEHBP covers approximately 4,000,000 federal and postal employees and annuitants.

The FEHBlog has noted that it is a lawyer's job to belabor the obvious. Kaiser Health News takes up that role with a list of seven factors that drive up health care costs. The FEHBlog isn't sure what the ACA does to control these factors. The FEHBlog is confident that application of common sense (and assumption of personal responsibility) can help to control these costs. To wit, the Wall Street Journal reports on a Washington State program that encourages patients to take specific steps to get stronger before they undergo surgery.