On November 29th, the U.S. House approved by voice vote H.R. 2465, the Federal Workers Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act. The Act, along with various changes to the federal workers compensation program, includes a provision that would allow reimbursement of services provided by APRNs.
The Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reductions, aka the super committee, failed to meet its congressional obligation to vote on a plan for $1.2 trillion in budget cuts during the last weeks of November. As you may remember, the U.S. Congress signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 into law this past summer creating the bipartisan 12 member committee. The super committee had been charged with finding at least $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reductions by the end of the year. Their failure to achieve a consensus triggers a series of automatic budget cuts in the amount of 1.2 trillion dollars which will go into effect in 2013.
Chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and obesity are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States as well as a major driver of increasing health care costs. The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD), a coalition of patient, provider, and community organizations, as well as experts in the field, has a goal of raising awareness of this problem.
