End of the week items

It's the end of the week for the FEHBlog who is flying out to Madison Wisconsin for his younger daughter's college graduation from UW.  Go Badgers.

At yesterday's Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, the Committee approved by voice vote a bill (S. 1910) that would extend FEHBP and FEGLI coverage to the same sex domestic partners of Federal employees. The cost of the expansion would covered by an overdue amendment to the FEHB Act that would confirm the right of FEHBP carriers to be reimbursed for medical expense payments when the FEHB participant has also received reimbursement from a third party for the same medical expenses, e.g, through an auto insurance claim or a lawsuit. In other words, the provision would avoid a double recovery by the participant. That's just common sense.

On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a new web-based tool  known as the Health System Measurement Project "that will make it easier for all Americans to monitor and measure how the nation’s health care system is performing." However, when the FEHBlog visited the site, he found a hearty endorsement for the Affordable Care Act's increase of the child eligibility age to 26.

Today Standard and Poors announced 

The S&P Healthcare Economic Composite Index indicates that the average per capita cost of healthcare services covered by commercial insurance and Medicare programs increased by 5.68% over the 12-months ending March 2012. This is a modest deceleration from the +5.72% rate posted for February 2012. [However,] healthcare costs covered by commercial insurance plans increased by 7.84% over the year ending March

So the moderation apparently was produced by Medicare's price controls.