Bacteria that was once tamed by antibiotics is now evolving rapidly into forms that practically no drug can treat. Among the most alarming of these is MRSA, but even more drug-resistant strains are emerging and top infectious disease doctors are saying that lawmakers and the public do not realize the grave implications of this trend.
Five Massachusetts municipalities have taken advantage of a state law adopted in July 2007 that allows public groups to join the state's employee healthcare system as a way to save money. The five communities all met a first-year deadline in October to enroll in the Group Insurance Commission, the agency that administers the state's health insurance plan.
In a preview to the rest of 2008, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt says the Bush administration will work to limit the government's role in the delivery of healthcare. The goal is a sharp contrast with Democratic proposals such as giving the health chief the power to negotiate drug prices and greatly increasing enrollment in federally sponsored health insurance for children.
The Cleveland Clinic will decide within three months whether to build a 200-bed hospital in Shanghai, China. The cost of building the hospital, which would specialize in cardiac care, would be $80 million to $100 million, with Chinese and other private investors involved. Physicians from the United States and China would staff the hospital.
General Motors says its new contract with the United Auto Workers will help cut its annual U.S. labor costs by $5 billion between now and 2011. The four-year pact shifts the obligation for about $46.7 billion in retired UAW worker healthcare from the company to the union, with the company pouring about $26.5 billion into a trust fund run by the union. Senior executives of GM touted the benefits of the labor contract and other cost reductions the company has implemented since a disastrous 2005 in which it lost more than $10 billion. Ford Motor Co., which posted a $12.6 billion loss for 2006, reached a similar contract agreement with the UAW following the GM contract resolution.
As part of a new policy that experts say is one of the toughest in the nation blocking pharmaceutical companies from influencing doctors, Duluth, MN-based SMDC Health System has banned nearly every freebie with a drug company name on it. Abolishing all logos from their facilities marks the latest and most drastic in a series of steps many of Minnesota's top healthcare institutions have taken in recent years to limit the doctor-drug rep relationship.