The Miami-Dade County Commission is to start negotiating with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, which may be willing to offer lower premiums or better coverage to residents than they have previously sold in exchange for the county's seal of approval.
Citing the health benefits of doing so, virtually all Nashville-area hospitals plan to ban smoking outdoors on their property in 2008. Hundreds of hospitals nationwide have enacted total smoking bans, starting with the Mayo Clinic in 2002.
The American College of Physicians has officially announced its endorsement of a single-payer healthcare system. the organization, however, stopped short of saying that a single-payer system like Medicare, in which the government would get and pay most bills, is the best way to achieve universal coverage.
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said he would focus on making insurance more affordable rather than requiring universal coverage as some Democrats have proposed.
If they want to avoid a pay cut from Medicare next year, the nation's medical doctors should have to adopt electronic record-keeping, the Bush administration has announced.
In an effort to motivate workers to kick unhealthy habits, employees at some companies who are overweight, smoke, or have high cholesterol, and who don't participate in supplementary wellness programs, will pay more for health insurance.