Seniors may have to pay more for care

Seniors may have to pay more for care

WASHINGTON

Medicare recipients could see a sizable new out-of-pocket charge for home-health visits if Congress follows through on a recommendation issued Thursday by its own advisory panel.

Until now, home-health visits from nurses and other providers have been free of charge to patients. But the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission says a co-payment is needed to discourage overuse of a service whose cost to taxpayers is nearing $20 billion a year amid concerns that fraudsters also are taking advantage.

The panel did not prescribe an amount, but its staff has suggested the charge be $150 for a series of related visits. Medicare requires co-pays for many other services, so home health has been the exception, not the rule.

Could Atlanta have prepared better?

ATLANTA

Days after a few inches of snow crippled the city, children are still home from school, icy highways are still littered with hundreds of abandoned cars and grocery stores are still running low on staples such as milk and juice.

Life in Atlanta probably won’t return to normal until late today, when temperatures finally rise above freezing. But the city’s helplessness in the face of a relatively mild winter storm raises a question: Should one of the South’s largest population centers have been better prepared?

Frustrated drivers and stranded travelers couldn’t help but lament Atlanta’s too-little, too-late response.

“You’ve got the busiest airport in the world, and the snow they got we would have cleaned in a matter of minutes,” said Wayne Ulery, an Ohio man who was stuck at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport for three days.

Steele seeks support

OXON HILL, Md.

His re-election bid in serious doubt, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele sought support from members of his party’s central committee Thursday as he struggled to avert defeat after a free-spending, gaffe-filled two years.

Four challengers campaigned to replace him in an unpredictable race to lead the party into the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns.

The rivals included Wisconsin GOP chairman Reince Priebus, former Missouri chairwoman Ann Wagner and former Michigan chairman Saul Anuzis. Former Bush administration official Maria Cino also sought to take the reins of a party committee focused on limiting President Barack Obama to one term in the White House.

464 die in mudslides

TERESOPOLIS, Brazil

The power was out, but lightning flashes illuminated the horror as villagers watched neighbors’ homes vanish under a wall of mud and water, turning neighborhoods into graveyards. Survivors dug at the earth barehanded Thursday, but all they found were bodies.

It was a scene of muddy destruction in mountain towns north of Rio, where at least 464 people were killed when torrential rains unleashed mudslides in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday, burying people alive as they slept. Officials would not venture guesses on how many people were missing — but fears were high that the death toll could rise sharply.

Associated Press