Healthcare.gov opened for browsing over the weekend, a week before people can begin to buy or renew plans for 2015. The fact that the government is previewing the site is a good sign. A working site on Nov. 15 is a chance for the Obama administration—and a new team leading the healthcare.gov effort—to restore some of the credibility that last year's flop damaged. The nation is split on the health-care law, with overall opinion tilting negative. Opposition may be so entrenched that there's little Obama can do to narrow that gap, but another faulty website launch would surely widen it.
It's been a rough year for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT – and it's unclear when things will get better. On Oct. 23, the Department of Health and Human Services tapped ONC head Dr. Karen DeSalvo as acting assistant secretary for health, primarily to lead its Ebola response team. DeSalvo rose to national prominence helping reshape healthcare in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. She's expected to bring valuable (and needed) disaster response know-how to HHS. However, DeSalvo's departure prompted Deputy National Coordinator Dr. Jacob Reider to resign as well.
Executives at other hospitals had grumbled for years about Partners HealthCare, privately calling the owner of Massachusetts General and Brigham & Women's hospitals an "800-pound gorilla" that always seemed to get its way, often at their expense. But it wasn't until Partners struck a deal with Attorney General Martha Coakley in May to acquire three more hospitals that rivals finally took a public stand. Within days, leaders from four health care systems met for dinner at Tufts Medical Center, each agreeing to potentially pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into lawyers and consultants to fight the expansion.
It's already been a dicey week for the president's health-care law with the Republicans taking back the Senate, and now this: The Supreme Court announced Friday it will take a case that could unravel the president's health-care law. Here's why. The heart of the case deals with subsidies that help people purchase insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. The justices have agreed to hear a lawsuit alleging that the government should not be providing subsidies to people who purchase coverage in the 36 states that have opted not to run their own health insurance marketplaces.
Following up on a CBS3 investigation started in May, a growing number of nurses are being abused inside hospitals locally and around the country. The latest happened in Minnesota. Surveillance video from a Minneapolis hospital shows a 68-year-old patient attacking nurses with a bar pulled from the side of his hospital bed. Described as being delusional and paranoid, the patient starts in the nurses' station and chases them into a hallway, hitting four of them. The police chief Paul Schnell says, "Two of them actually fell down in the hallway and they were repeatedly struck by the man with the pole."
Federal officials Sunday night turned on a portion of HealthCare.gov to allow consumers to explore the benefits and prices of health plans that will be sold for 2015 through the federal health insurance exchange. The window-shopping period is beginning several days before the Nov. 15 official start of the sign-up period for people in the three dozen states that rely on the federal exchange to renew their coverage or buy insurance for the first time. Andy Slavitt, principal deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency overseeing the marketplace, said technical staff working on HealthCare.gov rebuilt this portion of the Web site to make it easier to use.