Today, a new report showed that more than 5 million Americans with traditional Medicare, or nearly one in six people with Medicare, took advantage of one or more of the recommended preventive benefits now available for free thanks to the Affordable Care Act – most prominently, mammograms, bone density screenings, and screenings for prostate cancer.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) teamed up with the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the sixth Health Care Fraud Prevention Summit in Philadelphia. This historic moment in Medicare’s fight against fraud illustrates yet another way the health care law, the Affordable Care Act, is making America stronger, safer, and healthier. In fact this law is one of the toughest anti-fraud laws in American history.
Tomorrow, June 16, we are taking steps forward to move the nation away from a focus on disease and illness to a focus on wellness and prevention.
HHS Secretary Sebelius, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, US Senator Tom Harkin, Melody Barnes, Domestic Policy Adviser and the Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House and Surgeon General Regina Benjamin will join with other administration officials to unveil the first ever National Prevention Strategy.
You take your car in for a yearly smog check, change the battery in your kitchen’s smoke detector, and file your taxes. These are all things that keep your life running smoothly and help prevent problems before they start.
But what about you? Do you use health services to help prevent illness? Unfortunately Americans use preventive health services at about half the recommended rate, often because of cost concerns. This is dangerous to our health because chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are responsible for 7 of 10 deaths among Americans each year and are often preventable.
In a new web video, listen to Sorrel King’s personal story about why she’s committed herself to shedding light on the role that medical errors play in thousands of preventable deaths every year in the United States. After you’ve watched the video, join the partnership if you haven’t already. Help us raise public awareness and educate patients, families, and consumers about the importance of making care safer and better coordinated.
Today, we posted a new factsheet outlining the many ways in which the Affordable Care Act will reduce health disparities across the U.S. All across the country, low-income Americans, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT, and other underserved populations have not had adequate access to health care.
This means, these underserved populations are not able to take advantage of preventive services available to help them stay healthy and fight chronic disease
Over the past two months, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and other HHS officials have partnered with a variety of stakeholders to support the growing Partnership for Patients initiative. With the desire to work closely with hospitals across the country, the Secretary has embarked on a national tour to applaud hospitals and medical centers that are being proactive about making their facilities safer and more effective at treating patients with fewer complications.
In the past, our health care system functioned more like a sick care system. Even though seven of ten deaths in America and three quarters of our nation’s health expenditures are due to chronic diseases, we were investing only 4 cents of every health care dollar in prevention – the kind of care to keep people from getting diseases in the first place.
That is changing under the Obama Administration, and this June, we are marking our nation’s first-ever Prevention and Wellness Month. Over the next month, you can look forward to announcements, activities, and tips that will help you and your family get healthy and stay healthy.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced new changes that will reduce premiums and ease eligibility standards for Americans seeking to enroll in Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan in a number of states.
The Affordable Care Act is cutting the cost of prescription drugs for millions of people with Medicare. Starting this year, people with Medicare receive a 50% percent discount on covered brand name drugs bought when they are in the donut hole. So far, 271,000 people have used the discounts to save an average of $613 for a total of $166 million.
Today, HHS awarded three grants to help States continue their work to implement a key provision of the Affordable Care Act – Health Insurance Exchanges.
We are taking an important step forward in creating a better insurance marketplace, by awarding “Exchange Establishment Grants” to Indiana, Washington and Rhode Island. These grants will help ensure these States have the resources and the flexibility they need to establish Exchanges, and ensure that Americans are no longer on their own when shopping for insurance.
Over the last 10 years, the cost of family health insurance has jumped an amazing 131 percent and today coverage is out of reach for millions of people and business owners. The Affordable Care Act was passed last year to address this critical problem. Starting September 1, large rate increases proposed by insurers in every State will be reviewed by independent experts to guarantee the increase is reasonable and warranted. This process, called “rate review,” will require insurance companies to justify increases of 10 percent or more in the first year, and insurers will be required to publish those explanations on their website.