Kirk Ogrosky, a veteran white collar prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, has joined Arnold & Porter LLP as a partner in the white collar criminal defense and FDA/healthcare practices. Ogrosky's arrival is part of the firm's effort to broaden its white collar team in response to expanding enforcement activity in the U.S. and abroad. As the deputy chief of the DOJ's Fraud Section in charge of criminal healthcare matters at the Department of Justice from 2006 to 2010, Ogrosky handled cases involving pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, hospitals, managed care organizations, pharmacies, home health agencies, and skilled nursing facilities.
HealthEast Care System has announced that Tom Schmitt will become the new CEO at Woodwinds Health Campus when Julie Schmidt moves into her new role as chief transformation officer for HealthEast. Schmitt has served as operations executive at Woodwinds for nearly five years, and will begin his term as CEO on March 22.
Blaine J. O'Connell, CFO for Froedtert & Community Health, will retire effective Jan. 1, 2011. O'Connell has served as senior vice president of finance/CFO since the inception of Froedtert & Community Health in 2001. He joined the organization in January 1993 as vice president/CFO of Froedtert Hospital.
House Democrats won final approval of health reform legislation that expands coverage to 32 million people and attempts to contain spiraling costs. The House voted 219 to 212 to approve the measure, with every Republican voting no. The measure now awaits President Obama's signature. Over the next 10 years, the measure will set in motion a complex series of changes to the health insurance market that will translate into the biggest expansion of coverage since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, and the most ambitious effort ever to restrain healthcare costs, the Washington Post reports.
The House's approval of the Senate's version of healthcare legislation, which President Obama expects to sign into law swiftly, also will send to the Senate a 153-page package of amendments to that legislation. There, Democrats will implement the reconciliation rule to try to pass the revisions based on a simple majority and avoid a Republican filibuster. A small group of senators and staffers is expected to gather with the Senate parliamentarian to determine whether a tax on high-cost insurance policies would affect the Social Security trust fund, and whether that would violate prohibitions against altering Social Security through the reconciliation process, the Washington Post reports.
Massachusetts regulators should more closely oversee hospital costs, including setting prices, limiting new programs that make money for hospitals but drive up overall costs, and even sitting in on contract negotiations with insurers, Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said on the final day of hearings into the state’s escalating healthcare costs. Hospital executives who testified agreed that, long-term, the state should scrap the current fee-for-service system and pay groups of providers a per-patient annual fee to cover all a patient's medical care. They say such a plan would save money and lead to more coordinated care, the Boston Globe reports.