Monday, December 23, 2013

Monday Musings

The FEHBlog missed the weekend update because yesterday was the FEHBlog's birthday. Yesterday, he received the following birthday message from ESPN -- may your favorite team not suffer a humiliating defeat today. And the Redskins just lost -- it wasn't a humiliating defeat like the loss to the Kansas City Chiefs a couple of week ago. In any event, the FEHBlog had a nice weekend.

Congress is in recess for the rest of the year after the Senate passed and sent to the President a national defense authorization act for the current fiscal year. The Federal Times reports that the new law includes "prohibitions against any fee increases for Tricare or new user fees for the military health program by more than 1.7 percent next October."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC") listed their top five 2013 accomplishments and their top fve 2014 concerns. The CDCs credits its Tips from Former Smokers Campaign for exceeding the agency's goals for reducing tobacco use. The CDC also touted its Million Hearts campaign. OPM encourages FEHBP carriers to support these initiatives.

Finally, Kaiser Health News reports that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ("CMS") has started publishing how well patients fared after hip and knee replacement surgeries. CMS identified 95 stars and 97 laggards.

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