The total price tag for ObamaCare's insurance programs will be 20 percent less than expected, the government's budget office said Monday. The law's insurance provisions are now expected to cost $571 billion through 2019 — a drop of about $139 billion from the government's earliest estimates five years ago, according to new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The drop in spending is largely due to the smaller-than-expected subsidies load because enrollment in health insurance through ObamaCare has been slower than expected. The CBO had initially expected 13 million people to sign up for health insurance through the exchanges by the end of this year, though it since revised that figure to 12 million.
President Barack Obama wants the U.S. to invest much more in fighting antibiotic-resistant germs to prevent re-emergence of diseases conquered long ago. The White House said Tuesday that Obama will ask Congress to nearly double its funding to fight antibiotic resistance to $1.2 billion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 23,000 Americans die every year from infections that can withstand some of the best antibiotics. The World Health Organization said last year that bacteria resistant to antibiotics have spread to every part of the world and might lead to a future where minor infections could kill.
Obamacare co-ops were supposed to be a new way to get insurance to people to help them maintain their health, but more than a year after they first began selling coverage plans, a number of those co-ops might be needing some financial medicine of their own. Before last Friday's failure of a Midwest-based co-op, a new analysis of the Obamacare co-ops detailed the losses that were booked by all but one of the two dozen nonprofit insurers through the third quarter of 2014. Aggregate underwriting losses at the co-ops hit nearly $244 million through Sept. 30, compared to just more than $72 million in the first quarter of 2014.
Measles could once again become native in the U.S., disease experts worry, as an outbreak in California linked to Disneyland has put a spotlight on a growing failure to vaccinate that's helping the disease to spread. While 94 percent of California kindergarteners were fully inoculated against the virus last school year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are clusters where vaccination is much lower. In some pockets of California, as much as a quarter of children are undervaccinated -- putting them at risk of both contracting the disease and becoming a nexus of future spread.
Steve Klasko, the chief executive officer of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, wants to see fewer patients walking into his emergency room. Jefferson is investing $20 million to open two urgent-care centers, including one three blocks from the existing ER, to treat patients with routine medical needs, and build a program to allow physicians to perform consultations using video apps so that other patients never have to leave home. "The best way to save the system lots of money is to keep them out of the hospital," Klasko says.
Kaiser Permanente nurses in California have approved a new contract that boosts pay and improves patient care along with health and safety protections for nurses, a union official said. Registered nurses and nurse practitioners who work at 21 hospitals and 65 clinics across Northern and Central California voted last week to approve the new three-year deal, the California Nurses Association said Monday. About 18,000 Kaiser nurses in the state went on a two-day strike in November, and another walkout was planned for last week but an agreement was reached. California Nurses Association represents the Kaiser nurses. Those workers are part of the National Nurses United organization.