Partners HealthCare, the state's biggest health care provider, lost $22 million in the last fiscal year, its first loss in 15 years. The losses stemmed from the troubled finances at the company's insurance arm, Neighborhood Health Plan, which primarily serves people with low incomes. While Partners collected $11 billion in revenues in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, it finished the year with operating losses, a significant reversal from the profit of $158 million it earned the previous year. At Neighborhood, the losses amounted to $110 million. The insurer also booked a loss for $92 million set aside in reserves, as required by state accounting rules.
Obamacare's October 2013 rollout promised affordable health insurance for millions of uninsured Americans. But few were able to sign up in the program's early weeks, due mainly to a balky Web site that became a lightning rod for broader attacks by Republicans on the whole idea of the Affordable Care Act. Just over a year later, more than 6 million consumers have purchased health insurance, many for the first time, through HealthCare.gov and the site's performance has markedly improved. But with Monday's deadline looming for individual enrollment for 2015 coverage, this weekend marks the first big stress test since a new tech team overhauled HealthCare.gov.
The head of the financially troubled Waterbury Hospital said Friday that the organization was reserving all its options, including layoffs, to keep its doors open after Tenet Healthcare Corp. walked away from its deal to buy the hospital. Darlene Stromstad, the hospital's president and chief executive, said that all costs will be tightly scrutinized and that discretional spending will be zeroed out. The hospital will continue to defer needed capital expenses and also consider curtailing the hours of its outpatient practices. And layoffs, too, are on the table, but "not before Christmas," Stromstad said in an interview Friday.
For Steve Smith, a 62-year-old with prostate cancer, the ability to keep his urologist was the decisive factor when he bought health insurance for this year. Smith, who lives in the Shaw neighborhood, lost his coverage when his employer closed its St. Louis location in 2013. He was able to keep his current Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plan — and his doctor — through the end of the year. But when it came time to purchase his own insurance, he had only one choice on HealthCare.gov if he wanted to keep the urologist he has seen since his diagnosis about six years ago. He had to pick a Coventry Healthcare plan, which included BJC HealthCare — the biggest hospital system in St. Louis — in its provider network.
Maryland is making it easier to find out if the hospitals you visit are clean, quiet and safe. Hospital information you may have never seen before can now be found in one place. It's on a state website overseen by the health department. When you surf around, you can see everything from whether the bathrooms were clean to infection rates. Some believe putting it all out in the open will force hospitals to up their game. Danyelle Sanders knows how Shady Grove Adventist Hospital handles its patients; it's where she birthed her baby girl, Peyton, earlier this year.
An absence of strong statewide leadership and a fragmented, underfunded public mental-health system have resulted in hundreds of people with mental illness being imprisoned at the Adult Correctional Institutions. Many have been arrested only for petty crimes such as shoplifting and trespassing. Some worsen psychiatrically or lose needed benefits behind bars, creating a cascade of new problems when they are released, as nearly all inmates eventually are. Much of this could be avoided. Better community care of people diagnosed with serious mental illness could prevent many imprisonments and reduce recidivism — and society at large, not just individuals, would benefit, advocates assert.