Insurers have been targeted throughout the healthcare reform debate, but an underlying driver of escalating insurance premiums—the growing market power of hospitals and physicians to negotiate higher reimbursement rates—also needs to be addressed, according to a report by the Center for Studying Health System Change. The report traces how consolidation of hospitals and formation of independent physician practice associations in California during the past decade have strengthened providers' bargaining power with health plans, leading to higher premiums in that state.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is confident she will be able to get the votes needed to pass sweeping healthcare legislation in the House, the New York Times reports. The House passed a bill to remake the healthcare system in early November, but Pelosi said she would have another version, incorporating compromises between the House and the Senate, "in a matter of days." When the new package is ready, she will sell it to the public, Pelosi told the Times.
Angel Medina Jr., a well known Miami banker and vice chairman of the Public Health Trust, is being considered to become chief financial officer of Jackson Health System. At a press conference, Jackson Chief Executive Eneida Roldan said the possibility of Medina came up after she initiated a national search last year for a CFO, after Frank Barrett told her he wanted to retire in 2010. Barrett stepped down abruptly after announcing that losses for fiscal 2009 were not $46 million as originally forecast, but closer to $200 million, the Miami Herald reports.
In January 2009, St. Louis Park, MN-based Park Nicollet Health Services began posting the payments its practitioners receive from industry. A year later, officials at Park Nicollet "are very proud of this initiative," said Susan Zwaschka, Park Nicollet's general counsel and vice president of corporate compliance. In the first year, Park Nicollet healthcare practitioners received 137 actual payments, largely from drug and medical device companies, for a total sum between $331,000 and $775,000, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
As Medicaid swells in cost and number of recipients, some Republican legislative leaders in Florida are increasingly interested in putting more of the program's patients into HMOs, giving the private companies more control over the state-federal program for the poor. In the past five years, the number of Floridians on Medicaid has grown 28% to about 2.8 million people. Costs have grown even more, and the program now weighs in at about $19 billion in the current budget year. That's about 28% of Florida's budget, the Miami Herald reports.
Connecticut had the fifth most expensive group health insurance premiums in 2008 and has seen accelerating increases since, placing the state in the national debate about out-of-control premium hikes, the Hartford Courant reports. The increasing costs have ignited public outrage and political theater, particularly in Connecticut. State regulated group rates went up 13% and more for a family this year, while individuals who buy insurance on their own saw an average increase of 20.7%. Now, Connecticut legislators are weighing a bill to add further constraints on insurers raising premiums for individual plans, the Courant reports.