A huge healthcare reform bill in Minnesota has hit a major and potentially fatal roadblock. Legislative leaders said that Gov. Tim Pawlenty had abruptly withdrawn his support for the bill because it lacked support from Republican House members. But a Pawlenty spokesman said that Pawlenty, in fact, never supported this bill because it expanded healthcare rolls without offsetting savings.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is threatening to sue the state of California over cuts to its medical insurance program for the poor. Newsom called the cuts, which would result in a 10% reduction in reimbursements to doctors who treat Medi-Cal patients, "unconscionable." Newsom said he has the support of healthcare providers around the state and that he is working to bring other California cities on board.
Sharply different philosophies are at the core of the three major Presidential candidates' potential solutions for how Americans should get and pay for their healthcare. Each is reacting to a host of problems that are driving up costs for businesses and consumers, including a 78% jump in insurance premiums since 2002, a Medicare system heading for red ink as baby boomers age, and a shrinking percentage of employers offering coverage. Those factors, combined with the growing number of uninsured, have created a public appetite for healthcare reform.
Of all the high-profile Atlantans chosen for the board of the new nonprofit corporation that runs Grady Memorial Hospital, few, have a more impressive resume than Louis Sullivan, MD. Sullivan is the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and brings his connections to the medical world, the Washington bureaucracy, potential donors and to the black community. Credibility in the black community could be key, because many Grady patients are minorities. The hospital's restructuring has been viewed with suspicion by some black leaders who fear it is a power grab by white business leaders.
The demand for family physicians is expected to surge by 2020, when the nation will need 140,000 family physicians, according to statistics from the American Academy of Family Physicians. If all Americans get health coverage as promised by politicians, 47 million uninsured Americans will need health coverage. Now people should be concerned about whether the supply of primary care doctors is up to the task, says Wall Street Journal columnist Benjamin Brewer, MD.
A new report issued by the Bush administration says Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund would be exhausted in 2019, while Social Security's reserves would be depleted in 2041. Trustees said Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund would pay out more in benefits than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues this year. The report may put pressure on the presidential candidates to say what they would do to rein in health costs and to shore up the programs.