Fourteen years after a failed attempt, Democrats are launching an aggressive push for universal healthcare. The staffs of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who heads the Senate's Health, Education Pensions and Labor Committee, are already meeting with key healthcare experts. In addition, Senate aides plan to meet with doctors' groups, insurance companies, business associations, and other key players in reforming healthcare. Their goal is to have the outlines of a healthcare proposal by the end of 2008 that can be introduced in the opening days of the next president's administration.
Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, comments on how an experienced surgeon at the facility recently operated on the wrong side of a patient. In this item from his "Running a Hospital" blog, Levy publishes the e-mail that hospital administrators sent to staff members regarding the incident, then comments on the experience. Levy says that while he feels "incredibly badly about the event," he is happy about the actions taken by individuals and groups involved immediately afterward.
Anthem Blue Cross parent WellPoint Inc. has agreed to pay $11.8 million to settle claims from about 480 California hospitals that it failed to cover the bills of patients it dropped after they were treated. The hospitals sued after scores of their patients contended that Blue Cross had illegally dropped them. The hospitals say they provided emergency and authorized care to patients who were, at the time of treatment, Blue Cross members in good standing. Only later did Blue Cross drop the patients and renege on its obligation to pay their bills, the hospitals said.
Healthcare is returning as a campaign issue, as special interest and advocacy groups are prepared to spend at least $60 million to push politicians to embrace universal healthcare. The efforts, one by a coalition of labor and liberal groups and another by AARP, also include direct appeals to the presidential contenders and congressional candidates to change the healthcare system.
Charlotte, NC-based Hospital Partners of America has retained Merrill Lynch to shop around St. Joseph Medical Center in Houston in the hopes of finding a new buyer for the facility. HPA bought the facility from Christus Health Gulf Coast less than two years ago, but HPA is suffering from liquidity problems and is trying to sell all of its hospitals. St. Joseph representatives said the facility is financially healthy, and many hope the new buyer continues to operate the hospital.
Erickson Retirement Communities, a Catonsville, MD-based developer of retirement communities, plans to open its first free-standing medical practice for senior citizens and will consider expanding with similar off-site offices in Maryland and throughout the country. The new Erickson office will serve adults 65 and older who are covered by Medicare. The move comes at a time when threatened cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates could make it increasingly difficult for physicians to treat Medicare patients.