New legislation passed by the Senate would provide American Indians with better access to healthcare services. The bill would boost programs at the federally funded Indian Health Service, prompt new construction and modernization of health clinics on reservations, and attempt to recruit more Indians into health professions. It also would increase tribal access to Medicare and Medicaid.
The most serious domestic policy problem this country faces is the rising costs of Medicare, says John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. In this Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Goodman presents his ideas on how to control the problem.
The Justice Department contends that the Franklin, TN-based hospital company Community Health received a total of $27.5 million in improper payments at three of its New Mexico hospitals through June 2006. But Community Health representatives say the company did nothing wrong and violated no laws in the period under Justice department review.
U.S. healthcare spending will almost double to about $4.3 trillion by 2017, according to economists with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS forecasts that healthcare spending will account for 19.5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product by 2017, up from 16.3 percent in 2007. A key factor in the increase will be the entry in 2011 of the leading edge of the baby boom generation into Medicare, officials said.
Faced with mounting deficits caused mainly by insufficient state aid to cover all its uninsured patients, officials at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center in Plainfield said they will close the 130-year-old facility later this year. The Union County hospital plans to file formal papers with the state Department of Health and Senior Services on March 1 seeking the closure. If approved, programs and services will be phased out during a "wind down" period before Muhlenberg finally stops admitting patients.
Hospitals in the Tampa Bay, FL, area are approaching any bill-paying changes cautiously for fear of ending up with the kind of public relations disaster that hit Hot Spring County Medical Center in Arkansas. To increase its cash flow, Hot Spring sold patient debt to a private finance company, CompleteCare, which tacked on interest and billed the patient. As a result, an uninsured patient who could only afford $100 a month to the hospital was stuck with a bill more than four times that size from CompleteCare.