A surgeon who contracted the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone died at a Nebraska hospital where he was transported for treatment, the facility said Monday. A statement released Monday by Nebraska Medical Center said Dr. Martin Salia "has passed away as a result of the advanced symptoms of the disease." "Dr. Salia was extremely critical when he arrived here, and unfortunately, despite out best efforts, we weren't able to save him," said Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the biocontainment unit. Salia, 44, was being treated in the medical center's biocontainment unit. He arrived Saturday by plane from West Africa, and was transported by ambulance for treatment at the hospital, where two other Ebola patients have been successfully treated
The health insurance marketplace opened for business on Saturday and performed much better than last year, but some consumers reported long, frustrating delays in trying to buy insurance and gain access to their own accounts at HealthCare.gov. Thousands of people attended hundreds of enrollment events around the country at public libraries, churches, shopping malls, community colleges, clinics, hospitals and other sites. Insurance counselors and federal, state and local officials said they were trying to juggle two tasks — enrolling more of the uninsured and renewing coverage for those who already had it. Some of the problems became evident on Saturday just as Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, was visiting a community health center in Manassas, Va.
The state that served as a template for President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act had so much trouble coordinating with the federal government that it became a model of another sort: ineptitude. The Massachusetts website, designed by the same contractor that worked on the troubled federal website, performed so poorly it prompted a public apology from Gov. Deval Patrick and forced health care officials to adopt a series of manual workarounds, creating a backlog of more than 50,000 paper applications. Massachusetts was one of several states where the ambition of running their own health insurance marketplace inside a new federal system ran into a harsh reality.
Fed up with the rising price of drugs, Ascension Health last month did something unusual. It publicly banned a drug company's sales reps. The reason: The company had reclassified three cancer drugs, causing prices to spike. In a memo to employees, Dr. Roy Guharoy and Michael Gray, two top executives with the Edmundson-based hospital chain, explained: "Already scarce resources will need to be stretched with potential serious impact on the range and breadth of health services we currently provide to our patients and our communities." The move proved largely symbolic.
Before Mark Edwards ever reclined on a hospital operating table in September, he'd received two bills for his outpatient procedure and was asked to remit $500. After he left the hospital, the Paducah, Ky., businessman paid $2,000 more, the rest of his insurance deductible. "Luckily, I could take out a credit card and pay. A lot of people can't," Edwards said. His experience, being asked to pay a sum upfront for surgery, has become increasingly common as doctors' practices and hospitals navigate the world of employer-provided high-deductible health plans and the launch of the federal Affordable Care Act.
Senator Charles Schumer wants President Obama to pick up New York City's more than $20 million tab for treating its first Ebola patient. Since the Big Apple and Bellevue Hospital treated and cured Dr. Craig Spencer of the "infectious disease that is a threat to the nation," the New York lawmaker believes the government should pony up and reimburse the city. "Last week, Dr. Spencer thankfully returned home healthy and free of Ebola," Schumer said Sunday. "But the world-class response mounted by New York City and Bellevue HHC was not free, and the bottom line is local communities and local taxpayers should not foot the whole bill for handling an infectious disease that is a threat to the nation."