Kansas City, MO-based St. Luke's Health System has announced that it intends to terminate its contract with UnitedHealthcare on Feb. 28, 2009. The flap between St. Luke's and UnitedHealthcare is the latest example of contentious relations between health providers and insurers nationwide. Tensions between the two camps have escalated in amid growing concerns over higher healthcare costs and standards for quality and efficiency.
Capital BlueCross Chief Executive Officer Anita Smith said the merger between Highmark Inc. and Independence Blue Cross. would further stifle competition in Pennsylvania's health insurance market unless some conditions are attached. Although Highmark and IBC have testified that the merger wouldn't reduce competition in the state because the two insurers' geographic footprints don't overlap, Smith said her counterparts were omitting key details.
In his new budget, President Bush will call for large cuts in the growth of Medicare, far exceeding what he proposed last year, and he will again seek major savings in Medicaid, according to administration officials and budget documents. Over all, the 2009 budget is likely to be the first $3 trillion spending request by a president. Healthcare savings are a crucial part of Mr. Bush's plan to put the nation on track to achieve a budget surplus by 2012.
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.