The Obama administration in the near future is expected to announce several decisions on how provisions of the Affordable Care Act will be implemented. These include:
- Bundled payments: Under the plan, the government will pay a lump sum for the treatment of certain conditions in patients entering hospitals, nursing homes or home health care;
- Hospital payments: The administration is expected to announce how it will allocate $36 billion in cuts to hospitals that treat a large number of uninsured patients;
- Insurance plans: The administration is expected to determine how policies included in state health insurance exchanges will be designed, priced and sold. The government also must specify minimum coverage for health plans sold in the exchanges and clarify cost-sharing rules for consumers; and
- Medical device excise tax: The government still must decide which medical devices will be subject to the ACA’s 2.3 percent tax, which starts January 1, 2013, and how that tax will be applied and collected.
