By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
A familiar name in D.C. political circles was missing from a D.C. Council committee hearing Wednesday to address concerns about a contract to salvage the money-losing, city-owned United Medical Center.
A key D.C. Council member said Wednesday he will introduce a disapproval resolution related to a questionable $12.7 million contract to overhaul city-owned United Medical Center.
D.C. officials awarded a $12.7 million contract to overhaul chronically troubled, city-owned United Medical Center to an out-of-town firm that failed to meet minority subcontract requirements, according to local competitors citing city law.
The embattled managed-care company owned by the man at the center of a federal probe into D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's 2010 campaign was carrying $3 million in unexplained revenue on its books and had transferred $1 million to an unknown recipient, city agency directors said Thursday.
The D.C. government submitted a detailed proposal to the federal government on Wednesday outlining its vision for a consumer-friendly marketplace of insurance plans as part of President Obama's health care law, a controversial package of reforms that the District embraced from the start while other states wait for its legal and political narrative to play out.
D.C. Department of Health Director Mohammad N. Akhter will request a leave of absence from his Cabinet post to serve on a board governing the city's health care exchange, a key ingredient of President Obama's reforms that were upheld last week by the U.S. Supreme Court.
D.C. Department of Health Director Mohammad N. Akhter is poised to request a leave of absence from his cabinet post to serve on a board governing the city's healthcare exchange, a key ingredient of President Obama's reforms that were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, he and city officials said Friday.
The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision on Thursday to uphold President Obama's health care mandate as a tax prompted Democratic leaders in the District and Maryland, as early adopters of Mr. Obama's vision, to rejoice while Virginia's Republican governor denounced it as "a blow to freedom."
D.C. Council member David A. Catania put forth game-changing proposals Thursday intended to save money in the District's public health care framework — one to scrap the city's managed care system and another that requires many low-income patients to start paying monthly premiums for services "so that everyone is pulling the wagon."
Three weeks ago, the District's chief financial officer issued a warning: Inserting items into the city budget based on hopes that revenue may exceed projections down the road is not sound fiscal policy.
Nearly a dozen companies that receive federal and state tax dollars to supply power wheelchairs, oxygen machines and other medical equipment to low-income D.C. residents remained active in the city's Medicaid program even after federal regulators fired the businesses, a federal audit released Thursday found.
A hearing into the personnel practices of D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray started this morning with council member Mary M. Cheh's announcement that a second hearing will be tentatively scheduled for April 7.
A former D.C. government worker said Monday he was directed by D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's chief of staff to find a job for controversial mayoral contender Sulaimon Brown.
"He has not contacted me on UMC," he said.
"I hear what people say, but I don't want to speculate," he added, declining to discuss details.
