Bob Burgin, a retired healthcare executive who served for more than two decades as president and CEO of Mission Hospitals in Asheville, NC, will provide interim leadership for Wellmont Health System as the organization conducts a national search for its next CEO. Burgin has been a member of the Wellmont board of directors since July 2009. He assumes his responsibilities as interim CEO immediately, working closely with outgoing President/CEO Mike Snow, who will leave the system later this month to become COO of Amedisys Inc.
WellPoint, Inc. announced that Larry C. Glasscock is retiring as chairman of the board of directors and as a member of the board of directors effective March 1. WellPoint's board of directors has named Angela F. Braly, WellPoint's president/CEO, as chair of the board, also effective March 1.
The California Medical Association has appointed Dustin Corcoran, who has worked for CMA for nearly 12 years in several capacities, as its new CEO. Corcoran led CMA's lobbying efforts for five years before becoming deputy CEO last fall. The CMA Board of Trustees voted to approve Corcoran's appointment at its quarterly meeting last month.
President Obama invited Republicans in Congress to participate in a bipartisan, half-day televised summit on healthcare reform this month. Obama challenged Republicans, who have been largely unified in opposing his proposals, to bring their best ideas for how to cover more Americans and fix the health insurance system to the public discussion, the Washington Post reports. Democratic efforts to push a final health bill through the Congress without Republican support fell apart last month when Democrats lost its filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate.
Democrats have been searching for a way to salvage the healthcare bill, after the legislation was thrown into limbo by the Republicans' upset victory in a special Senate election in Massachusetts on Jan. 19. President Obama suggested that Democrats and Republicans publicly debate the merits of their competing healthcare proposals, then hold a final vote. Some Senate Democrats have noted that they had already gone through such an exercise, debating the legislation for 25 straight days before they approved it, with no Republican support, on Christmas Eve, the New York Times reports.
New York Gov. David A. Paterson provided the second cash infusion in a week Feb. 7 to St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan , but said concessions from unions and physicians would be needed to keep the hospital open. The governor said that after "hours of intensive discussions and calls between all parties" the state had agreed to put up $3 million and creditors another $3 million to keep the hospital going temporarily. The 160-year-old hospital is $700 million in debt and has stopped accepting new outpatients to its HIV and community health programs because it may be forced to close, the New York Times reports.