In selling the healthcare overhaul to Congress, the Obama administration cited a once obscure research group at Dartmouth College to claim that it could not only cut billions in wasteful healthcare spending but make people healthier by doing so. But while the research compiled in the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care has been widely interpreted as showing the country's best and worst care, the Dartmouth researchers themselves acknowledged in interviews that in fact it mainly shows the varying costs of care in the government's Medicare program. Measures of the quality of care are not part of the formula, the New York Times reports.
A group of physician-owned hospitals plans to file a lawsuit asking a federal court in Tyler, TX, to halt the new healthcare law's ban on Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to future doctor-owned facilities. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has more than 22 physician-owned hospitals. Nationwide, there are 265, with an additional 29 set to open before Dec. 31, when the new law bars federal payments. The law would also withhold federal reimbursements to physician-owned hospitals that expand after the end of the year—which would disrupt work under way at Texas Spine and Joint Hospital, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Cutting expenses helped Boca Raton (FL) Community Hospital boost its income in the fiscal third quarter. In a report to its bondholders, the nonprofit hospital said it earned $3 million on operating revenue of $92.4 million in the quarter ended March 31. In the year-ago period, it earned just $9,000 on operating revenue of $96 million.
A bill seeking to allow Tennesseans to opt out of the new federal healthcare law has been defeated in the state House. The measure sponsored by Republican Rep. Mike Bell of Riceville was defeated by a single vote in the House Budget Subcommittee. State Attorney General Bob Cooper has questioned the constitutionality of Bell's measure on the basis that it could be pre-empted by federal law, The Tennessean reports.
Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the nation and some of the sickest people, with the country's highest rate of heart disease and the second-highest rate of diabetes. For every dollar the state spends to expand healthcare for the poor, it stands to get as much as $20 from Washington. But state officials have been making it harder, not easier, to enroll in government-backed healthcare programs, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Congress has missed the deadline for new legislation to block cuts of 21% in Medicare payments to doctors. The pay reduction officially took effect June 1, but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put a hold on processing physician payments for 10 business days, effectively pushing off the bite on payments for physicians' services until June 15. The American Medical Association is increasingly peeved with the blown deadlines and will soon lay out the details of a "multi-million dollar" ad campaign to get people to call their senators and have them deal with the issue, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports.