Faircare Act

Bill: 109-s-1929
Sponsor: Sen. Lieberman, Joseph I. [D-CT]
Introduced: 2005-10-27 in the Senate
Policy area: Health
Subjects: AIDS (Disease)
Access to health care
Accreditation (Medical care)
Administrative procedure
Alaska
Ambulatory care
Asian American ethnic groups
Asthma
Blacks
Breast cancer
Cardiovascular diseases
Case mix (Medical care)
Cervical cancer
Child health
Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues
Clinics
Commerce
Community health services
Computers
Conferences
Congress
Congressional reporting requirements
Data banks
Demography
Department of Health and Human Services
Diabetes
Economics and Public Finance
Education
Educational statistics
Electronic government information
Electronic mail systems
Elementary and secondary education
Evaluation research (Social action programs)
Executive reorganization
Federal advisory bodies
Federal aid to child health services
Federal aid to health facilities
Federal aid to research
Finance and Financial Sector
Government Operations and Politics
Government paperwork
Government publicity
Health insurance
Higher education
Hispanic Americans
Hospital care
Hospitals
Human immunodeficiency viruses
Indian medical care
Indigenous peoples
Infant mortality
Information technology
Internet
Language and languages
Law
Licenses
Medicaid
Medical economics
Medical records
Medical research
Medical screening
Medical statistics
Medical tests
Medically uninsured
Medicare
Minorities
Minority health
Native Americans
Obesity
Pacific Islanders
Patient satisfaction
Performance measurement
Poor children
Quality of care
Right of privacy
Science, Technology, Communications
Social Welfare
Standards
Taxation
Vaccination
Web sites
Women
Women's health

Summary:
action_date: 2005-10-27
text: 
Faircare Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act (PHSA) to require additional data collection and reporting for funded health programs.
 
Authorizes the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to develop a set of quality measures for each of the most common treatment settings, including hospitals, pediatric centers, and outpatient facilities. Requires the Agency to rank these measures according to their potential to remedy health care disparities.
 
Requires the Agency to establish an Advisory Committee on Quality to recommend quality indicators for all quality data sets developed by the Agency.
 
Establishes the Office of National Healthcare Disparities and Quality within the Agency to administer the development and submission of the annual National Healthcare Disparities Report and the National Healthcare Quality Report.
 
Amends Title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a program under which financial incentive payments are made to hospitals if they meet certain criteria regarding data collection, high quality care, and the treatment of health disparity populations. Amends the PHSA to require the Secretary to: (1) designate health centers that receive federal assistance as Faircare Health Centers if they meet such criteria; and (2) make designated health centers eligible for annual bonuses.
 
Requires the Secretary, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to award grants and carry out activities to expand the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Program (REACH 2010).


Legislative actions:
action_date: 2005-10-27
text: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
action_date: 2005-10-27
text: Introduced in Senate