Roadblocks to Reform: The Influence of HIPAA and HITECH on the Affordable Care Act0

This article was first published at Michigan Business Professional Association on April 30, 2013.

When it comes to health care, our nation has reached a crossroads.  President Obama’s fledgling Affordable Care Act is a multifaceted, aggressive program designed to overhaul the delivery of health care by effectively restructuring its foundations from the inside out.  In doing so, it seeks to reduce the number of uninsured patients who have for so long been a burden to a struggling health care system that must provide medical care as a service while also turning a profit as a business.  But such a far-reaching plan has little chance of success if it is forced to evolve while fettered with the restrictions placed upon providers by certain grandfathered programs, most notably the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH).  As a result, we as a nation must now consider whether the ACA’s fundamental mission or patient privacy should rule the day. … Read more →

Taxing Health Care Reform0

Benjamin Franklin said:  “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

For almost 60 years, April 15 has meant “Tax Day,” or the day when individuals must submit their income tax returns to the Federal Government. The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes Congressional “power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Three years since its passage, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has become inextricably connected to the laws of federal taxation. The following overview explains some key points of intersection: … Read more →