The day after Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-CT) threatened on national television to join the Republicans in blocking the healthcare bill, Democratic senators emerged from a 90-minute closed-door session and suggested that they were on the verge of bowing to Lieberman's main demands: that they scrap a plan to let people buy into Medicare beginning at age 55, and to put an end to a fallback version of a new government-run health insurance plan. Lieberman said he believed that the Medicare expansion was off the table, though he did not get any guarantee, reports the New York Times.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D, OR) is proposing amendments to the Senate healthcare bill that would give people who are eligible for coverage through their employer the option of buying cheaper coverage from the new insurance exchanges and keeping the difference. The legislation without the amendments opens up the exchanges only to small businesses and to people who don't have insurance through an employer. There are virtually no provisions in the Senate or House health bills that directly reward consumers for choosing cost-efficient care or lowering their medical costs through healthy behavior, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago has purchased a vacant lot about a block south of the existing facility for an undisclosed sum. RIC executives said they have outgrown their existing 165-bed facility, which has only 40 private rooms. Also, certain services are located outside of the main hospital building, making it inconvenient for some patients and RIC staff, officials said. "This will be the site of a new facility," Chief Executive Joanne Smith, MD, told the Chicago Tribune.
Mayo Clinic Florida and St. Andrew's Lighthouse sare partnering to build an $8.8 million extended-stay facility to house cancer and organ transplant patients and their families. The Gabriel House of Care, a 30-bedroom hospitality house, will be built on a 4.5-acre lakeside site on Mayo Clinic's campus in Jacksonville. It will be leased to and managed by St. Andrew's Lighthouse, a Jacksonville not-for-profit. Mayo Clinic is raising $13.5 million for the project, some of which will fund future operations and expansion.
Maple Grove (MN) Hospital is set to open on Dec. 30, and now some are wondering if the new facility can drum up enough patients due to the poor economy. Some rivals are telling doctors not to send patients to the new competitor, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. The economy "is obviously a concern," said chief executive Andrew Cochrane. "But this is about serving the community." The hospital is opening in stages: Though it was built for 90 beds, it is opening with just 30.
This article from the Wall Street Journal states that the fate of U.S. healthcare legislation likely depends on the question of whether Democrats conclude they are better off passing a highly controversial bill than passing nothing at all. To get to this point, Senate Democrats already have had to nearly ditch the "public option," and appear to have decided to compromise further on one of the ideas that has become part of the alternative to the public option, the Journal article states.