OVERNIGHT HEALTH: Suit over birth-control mandate dismissed

by Elise Viebeck and Sam Baker - 10/01/12 10:00 PM ET

Read more about the latest decision concerning O’Brien Industrial Holdings from The Associated Press.

This again: Think the Supreme Court has already decided the healthcare issue? Not if Liberty University has anything to say about. The conservative Christian school is asking the Supreme Court to revive its suit challenging the individual mandate. A lower court declined to rule on Liberty’s case because of the Anti-Injunction Act, but the Supreme Court said the Anti-Injunction Act did not bar its suit against the mandate. So, Liberty said, the lower court was wrong and its decision should be vacated.

{mosads}The court on Monday asked the Justice Department to weigh in on Liberty’s request. Healthwatch has the details.

Doc shortage debate: The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) will launch an advertising campaign in Denver Tuesday to raise awareness for the U.S.’s looming doctor shortage. The campaign will coincide with the first presidential debate on Wednesday in Denver, and the AAMC plans to launch similar efforts for each subsequent debate in Kentucky, New York and Florida. The group is pushing for Congress to lift the cap on federal funding for government-backed hospital residencies, something a recent bill from Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) would do. The aging baby boomer generation, coupled with the newly insured Affordable Care Act beneficiaries, is expected to leave the United States short roughly 90,000 physicians by 2020. The AAMC is the group that administers the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT.

Quality pays: Medicare is launching new pushes for quality in provider hospitals, rewarding the use of good clinical practices and penalizing high readmission rates for conditions such as pneumonia. The efforts were mandated by the healthcare reform law. In the first case, Medicare will retain 1 percent of its hospital reimbursements and redistribute money based on whether hospitals embrace current best practices — giving heart attack victims medication to avert blood clots within 30 minutes, for example. Penalties for high readmission rates will deprive hospitals of 1 percent of their reimbursements, or about $280 million throughout the program this year. Read more at Healthwatch.

Raising awareness: Monday marked the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, giving President Obama and federal Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius an opportunity to tout the healthcare reform law’s free preventive benefits for women. The Affordable Care Act is bringing on “a new day for women’s health,” Sebelius said in a statement, by giving women “the potentially life-saving services they need to detect breast cancer before it spreads, without worrying how a copay would affect their family budget.” The United States has recognized Breast Cancer Awareness Month since the 1980s. Healthwatch has more.

Tuesday’s agenda

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will hold a Steering and Policy Committee hearing on Medicare and the budgets authored by GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

State by state

Medicaid eyed for all N.Y.’s ex-cons

California will require waivers for unvaccinated students

Nebraska law requiring parity in chemotherapy coverage ready to kick in

Lobbying registrations

Steve Buyer Group / RAI Services Company

Joanna Slaney / Environmental Defense Fund

Tompkins Strategies / National Federation of Independent Business

M.J. Simon & Company / Performant Financial Corporation

Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman / Norton Healthcare

Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman / Lee Memorial Health System

Directors Guild of America / self-registration