Three healthcare institutions agreed to help Miami-based Jackson Health's dialysis patients because the $100,000 move could save lives while saving costs in their own emergency rooms. The UM Hospital, Baptist Health South Florida, and Mercy Hospital said they would fund for one month 40-some dialysis patients who have lost their support from Jackson Health System. On Dec. 31, the financially struggling Jackson decided to drop contracts with out-patient dialysis centers to treat persons who are not covered by insurance. The move saves Jackson $4.2 million a year.
Labor leaders are fuming that President Obama has endorsed a tax on high-priced, employer-sponsored health insurance policies as a way to help cover the cost of healthcare reform, the New York Times reports. And as Senate and House leaders seek to negotiate a final healthcare bill, unions are pushing to have that tax dropped from the legislation, or at the very least they want the price threshold raised so that the tax would affect fewer workers, reports the Times.
Republicans are attacking the legal premise of the health reform legislation, saying Congress has no power to make people carry health insurance or pay a penalty or tax, the Wall Street Journal reports. Constitutional-law scholars say that if the healthcare overhaul becomes law, it could give courts an opportunity to test the limits of congressional authority in areas that haven't been examined since the New Deal era. However, courts usually defer to lawmakers, and Democrats could smooth the way further by using language in the final version that clearly asserts Congress's power under the Constitution to levy taxes, reports the Journal.
The city of Cincinnati has asked to be included in mediation involving the University of Cincinnati and the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati regarding the sale of Jewish Hospital to Mercy Health Partners and the future of the Health Alliance, which Jewish will be leaving and which could be dissolved. UC leaders have complained that the profitability that has made Jewish an attractive acquisition target effectively came through subsidies by University Hospital, the Business Courier of Cincinnati reports.
Continuing its post-Hurricane Katrina strategy of aggressive expansion, Ochsner Health Systems has reached a deal to buy NorthShore Regional Medical Center and the adjacent ambulatory surgery center in Slidell, LA. The move, struck via an undisclosed purchase agreement with California real-estate trust HCP Inc. and Tenet Healthcare Corp. of Texas, will give Ochsner its eighth hospital in the state and first on the north shore, the New Orleans Times Picayune reports.
A new, cancer-specific program is being launched in Middle Tennessee by national hospice-care provider Odyssey HealthCare. Called Cancer CareBeyond, it's personalized to each patient and offers families visits from nurses and doctors, spiritual advisers, counselors and health aides, plus home delivery of medicines, community support groups, and reading materials for all ages.