Advocates of the Affordable Care Act, focused until now on persuading people to buy health insurance, have moved to a crucial new phase: making sure the eight million Americans who did so understand their often complicated policies and use them properly. The political stakes are high, as support for the health care law will hinge at least partly on whether people have good experiences with their new coverage. Advocates of the law also say teaching the newly insured how to be smart health care consumers could advance the law's central goal of keeping costs down, such as by discouraging emergency room visits, while still improving care.
When Wendy Ellen Miller had a hip replacement at Greenwich Hospital last month, her husband, Andrew Tatarsky, expected to feel the same lost uncertainty he usually felt when a loved one underwent surgery. "You're sitting in the waiting room, wondering what's happening," said Tatarsky, 58, who lives in New York City. "You don't really know what's going on." But his experience this time around was different, due to a new program at Greenwich Hospital, which may expand to other hospitals in the region. The hospital offers a program that allows the family members of some surgery patients to receive updates about their progress via text message.
South Carolina hospital executives these days are like football coaches at halftime, making changes based on what the opposition threw at them in the first half while trying to anticipate the different tactics they might face in the second half. They aren't the only ones. Conflicting federal appeals court rulings last month — one said insurance subsidies are unconstitutional in states that don't run their own exchanges; another said the subsidies are permitted — could have even more impact on South Carolinians who bought health insurance policies through the Affordable Care Act.
The rate for a semi-private adult room at UW Hospital went up 8.9 percent this year, to $1,720 per day. The hospital's rate for a semi-private pediatric room increased by the same percentage, to $2,412. At Meriter Hospital, the charge for a day in the intensive care unit is $5,400 this year, a 42.5 percent jump from last year. Meriter's newborn nursery rate went down 37.6 percent, to $995. The newborn nursery rate at St. Mary's Hospital is $1,030 this year, up 6 percent from last year. Its ICU rate is $4,940, up 6.4 percent.
Janice Nakamura knows the financial burden of going without health care, and she's thankful for the Hawaii law that strictly mandates expansive, employer-provided coverage for her and her family. Without that, "it would be a choice between paying for medical coverage or eating," she said. The Nakamuras are among the 763,000 Hawaii residents – more than half the state's population – who rely on a unique, longstanding system that has been jeopardized by the federal health-care overhaul. State officials are concerned that if they don't quickly find a solution, Hawaii will end up getting "punished for being too good," as University of Hawaii law professor Hazel Bay described.
A group of Philadelphia hospitals, that deliver babies, say they'll no longer give free formula to mothers when they leave area hospitals. 3 On Your Side's Stephanie Stahl has the details. A Philadelphia breastfeeding task force made the announcement today, no more formula giveaways. The goal is to raise the city's breastfeeding rates . Studies show breastfeeding can help improve children's health and even benefit the mom, reducing her risk of cancer. Now six Philadelphia hospitals, including Temple University Hospital , Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, Hahnemann University Hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Hospital are making a dramatic shift in policy, hoping more mothers will breastfeed.