Gov. Ed Rendell has signed an executive order reopening the highly regarded Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council after an unexpected weeklong hiatus. The agency fell victim to the budget season's political battle, and the order allows it to resume operations through November and send its 44 employees back to work. The council is an independent agency considered a national leader in studying the quality of healthcare and its cost at the state level.
Nearly 30 people spoke during the first of three public hearings held by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department on the proposed merger between Highmark and Philadelphia's Independence Blue Cross.
The merger, if approved, would create the largest health insurer in the state and among the largest in the nation. Other insurers that oppose the merger noted the new company would control 72% of the market, discouraging entrants into the market.
Hartford, CT-based St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center is to receive the largest private gift in its 111-year history upon the death of an anonymous donor who has pledged $12.5 million to the hospital. The gift depends on the donor's identity being kept secret, and hospital officials released almost no details about who the money will come from or when it might become available. The money is earmarked for the Hoffman Heart and Vascular Institute of Connecticut at St. Francis.
Officials at Gallatin, TN-based Sumner Regional Medical Center say they're addressing procedures that led to a federal investigation into allegations of poor care provided to a man who died in the hospital's emergency room. Investigators with the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare said if the hospital had not taken corrective action, it could have cost the hospital its Medicare funding. One of the deficiencies cited in the investigation was in the nursing staff levels during one shift over a 14-day period.
Republican presidential cadndidate John McCain has announced that if elected president he would seek to insure some people by vastly expanding federal support for state high-risk pools like Maryland's, or by creating a structure modeled after them. But even well-regarded pools have served more as a stopgap than a solution.
Though high-risk pools have existed for three decades, they cover only 207,000 people, according to the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans. Premiums typically are high, but are still not nearly enough to pay claims. That has left states to cover about 40% of the cost.
Congressional investigators have found that Medicare had paid tens of millions of dollars to suppliers improperly using identification numbers of doctors who died. When suppliers file claims for equipment provided to a Medicare beneficiary, they normally must list an identification number for the doctor who prescribed or ordered it. In 16% of these cases, the report said, suppliers used identification numbers of doctors who had been dead for more than 10 years, the investigation found.