Pushed by public outcry over large rate increases that coincided with record industry profits, the Senate passed SB5261 on a 31-18 vote, which restores the insurance commissioner's authority to review rates in that market. The bill is expected to move easily through the House and to the governor's desk for signature, in part because the industry has lost credibility among leading Democrats.
Six years after the collapse of the country's biggest health care finance company, a trial is nearing for five executives accused of a $1.9 billion fraud that helped bring National Century Financial Enterprises down in 2002. Two former owners of National Century and three former executives facing charges that they conspired to defraud investors by diverting money from investors' funds for improper uses, fabricated data in investor reports, and moved money back and forth between accounts to conceal investor fund shortfalls. The government expects to call 45 witnesses during the trial, which is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is announcing today that it has raised $294 million in its five-year campaign to pay for the largest healthcare facility expansion and renovation ever in Georgia. When first envisioned, the campaign goal was $200 million. Then Children's agreed to take over responsibility for Grady Hospital's Hughes Spalding center, raising the goal to $230 million. That goal was raised again in July 2006 to $265 million.
Tennessee state officials have announced moderate expansion of the CoverTN program, initially created in an attempt to make healthcare coverage more accessible to people who live on limited income working for small businesses. The CoverTN plan started with eligibility requirements that applied to businesses with only 25 or fewer employees and that half of those employees had to make less than $41,000. Those standards have been expanded and is now open to businesses with up to 50 employees and half of those employees must make less than $43,000 a year. People must work an average of at least 20 hours a week at the job and have not had health coverage stopped in the last six months.
Fitch Ratings on Wednesday downgraded UnitedHealth Group Inc. default rating to 'A' from 'A+' and lowered the outstanding senior unsecured debt rating to 'A-' from 'A', all of which are upper medium grade ratings. Fitch cited a review showing the healthcare services company will be more leveraged than previously anticipated, and said the rating changes take into account the possible $1.3 billion in fines UnitedHealth is facing for alleged state law violations in California.
In an ambitious effort to shore up U.S. primary-care medicine, a coalition including General Electric Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. is launching an initiative to pay doctors hefty bonuses for creating "medical homes" for patients. The initiative is the latest and perhaps most far-reaching effort by Bridges to Excellence, a program backed by big employers and health plans to provide physicians with financial incentives for taking better care of patients. Last year, the program paid out roughly $10 million in bonuses to doctors in the 18 states where it is active.