Millions of Americans going for an annual checkup in 2014 will come away from the doctor's office with a new prescription to lower their cholesterol, a move cardiologists say will avert heart attacks and strokes. New guidelines released by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology will expand the use of statin drugs to almost 1 in 3 Americans from 16 percent currently. Everyone older than 40 with diabetes and those diagnosed with heart disease should be on a statin, regardless of their cholesterol count, the recommendations say.
Milwaukee's police chief defended the actions of two officers who took a felon into custody Thursday in the neonatal wing of Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, an arrest that resulted in the man being shot after he allegedly fled down a hallway brandishing a semi-automatic pistol. Police shot the 22-year-old man twice in the arm, causing him to drop his weapon. No one else was in the hallway at the time, and no officers, hospital employees or patients were hurt.
Saying "we fumbled the rollout," President Barack Obama announced a fix to the vexing problem of canceled health insurance policies Thursday. He told insurers they don't have to cancel plans next year just because of the Affordable Care Act. Insurers can continue the plans for 2014 on two conditions — they have to tell people what their plans don't cover, and they have to let people know they do have the option of going onto the health insurance exchanges to buy new plans with federal government subsidies and perhaps go onto Medicaid. "Insurers can extend current plans that otherwise would have been canceled in 2014," Obama said.
Just over 106,000 people picked health plans in the first month of open enrollment through the state and federal insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's health secretary said Wednesday, a fraction of the administration's initial estimate for enrollment during that period. Only about a fourth of the new enrollees — 26,794 — signed up through HealthCare.gov, the problem-plagued federal exchange, according to figures released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A much larger number, 76,319, signed up through the 14 state-run marketplaces.
The chief digital architect for the federal health insurance marketplace said Wednesday that he met periodically with White House aides to discuss the status of the website over the last three years, but he said the meetings focused narrowly on specific technical issues and therefore gave the president no clear warning of the disaster that ensued on Oct. 1. The official, Henry Chao, said he had provided "status briefings" to the White House on the development of certain features of the website, envisioned as the main vehicle for people to compare and buy insurance plans under the new health care law.
Another top administrator at Upstate Medical University has stepped down amid a state investigation of possible executive pay padding at the SUNY campus. Steven C. Brady, senior vice president for administration and finance, retired today, according to Dr. Gregory Eastwood, officer in charge of Upstate. Brady's retirement comes less than a week after Dr. David R. Smith, Upstate's president, announced his resignation after SUNY revealed it was investigating his compensation. Brady, 66, of Chittenango, also served as executive director of MedBest Medical Management Inc., a company affiliated with Upstate. It was through that company that Smith set up a deferred compensation plan in 2010 worth more than $349,000 without SUNY's approval, according to SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher.