The total value of Minnesota hospitals' community contributions was $2.7 billion last year, an increase over $2.2 billion contributed in 2005, according to the the Minnesota Hospital Association. The contributions include $432 million in uncompensated care costs in 2006, about a 23 percent increase from the same period of 2005.
Although Congress will likely put up enough money to keep Georgia's PeachCare program running through most of next year, plans to dramatically expand the program that provides health insurance to low-income children are dead.
Graceworks Health Clinic has opened its doors to serve residents in Williamson County, TN. The clinic has been created to serve the working uninsured in the county, and payments will be determined on a sliding scale.
A recent Gallup poll offered a dozen separate ways to expand health insurance coverage. Each suggestion garnered majority support, including tax breaks for small businesses, requiring large companies to offer health coverage or pay into a pool, and federal subsidies for the poor. Despite the variety of answers, the implication was clear: The public wants change.
Since 2000, UnitedHealth has been sanctioned in nine states for paying claims slowly, shortchanging doctors, hospitals or patients or poorly handling their complaints and appeals. The payment problems related to an array of medical care, from ER visits to specialist referrals to oral surgery on children.
Even as the community rallies to save Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, the 115-year-old facility could run out of money by the end of 2007. The hospital is expecting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, but that money may not arrive for months, and some may not arrive at all.