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.
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.