The shutdown of a major highway near St. Louis could result in a serious impediment for patients seeking care. The hospitals and organizations most affected are those in St. Louis County, which often sees up to 60 percent of patient traffic from neighboring counties under normal conditions. Other area hospitals have begun to stock up for the influx of new patients, but are unsure exactly how the highway closures will be handled.
Under the federal law known as COBRA, employees and their dependents who lose health coverage as a result of a job loss or other qualifying occurrences can remain on the same health plan for up to 18 months. COBRA can be more appealing than buying an individual health plan because costs in a group plan are often lower than what an employee would pay under an individual plan, where all the risk is borne by the employee alone. Yet, it is the former employee--not the employer-- who is typically responsible for up to 100 percent of the cost of the premium, as well as a 2 percent administrative fee, both of which continue to climb, making the service less desirable for some and too expensive for others who remain unemployed.
The Shriners Hospital for Children has signed a deal to buy nearly 6 acres of property from Washington University to build a hospital that will collaborate more closely with St. Louis Children's Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine physicians. Terms of the property deal were not disclosed. The Shriners expect to sell its first area 60-bed hospital in Frontenac, MO, that specializes in pediatric orthopedic services when the new one is completed. It is unknown how many beds or operating rooms the new hospital will hold, and preliminary estimates put the cost at about $86 million.
An Oakland-based youth advocacy group, Children Now, gave low marks to the state of children's health and education in California and urged leaders to boost funding and take action. The 2008 California Report Card, created by the group assigned letter grades to certain health and educational factors affecting California's children, assigning health insurance a C, and obesity a D. The report also found that fewer than half of the state's families can afford the basics of housing, child care, food, health insurance and transportation.
San Francisco's expansion of its landmark plan to provide healthcare to its 73,000 uninsured city residents saw few people taking advantage of the opporunity. At the program's new eligibility office near San Francisco General Hospital just one person had phoned by noon on the day of the expansion and all the chairs in the waiting room were empty.
Beginning late next year, Maryland will become the first state to give consumers independent evaluations of Preferred Provider Organization health plans offered by four of the state's largest healthcare providers. Consumers will be able to get information about the quality of care offered by a PPO health-plan provider, the number of complaints received and how customers are treated.