The Obama administration is moving forward with a contentious and long-dormant proposal to institute minimum wage and overtime standards for the in-home healthcare industry. Enactment of the regulations, which are under final review at the White House, would represent a major victory for unions that have fought for decades to win higher pay for direct-care aides.
An African-American nurse who is suing a Flint hospital because she said it agreed to a man's request that no African-American nurses care for his newborn recalled Monday that she was stunned by her employer's actions. "I didn't even know how to react," said Tonya Battle, 49, a veteran of the neonatal intensive care unit and a nearly 25-year employee of the Hurley Medical Center. Battle's lawsuit states a note was posted on the assignment clipboard reading "No African American nurse to take care of baby," according to the eight-page complaint against the medical center.
On a recent Saturday morning, an 11-year-old girl ran screaming from her room at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, the front of her T-shirt aflame. Now, as Ireland Lane undergoes skin grafts and burn treatment before heading home to Klamath Falls, state investigators are trying to determine how the fire happened—and whether a mix of flammable hand sanitizer and static electricity is to blame.
It's not just your mom who's suspicious of body art: Families of patients in intensive care units said that physicians who don't display piercings or tattoos make a better first impression, according to survey results released Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. In intensive care units, the researchers wrote (subscription required), the stakes are high but patients are unlikely to have a preexisting relationship with their doctors. "Trust needs to be established over a short time frame," they noted, adding that relatives of seriously ill patients often have to be active in medical decision making.
Less than a year before Americans will be required to have insurance under President Obama's healthcare law, many of its backers are growing increasingly anxious that premiums could jump, driven up by the legislation itself. Higher premiums could undermine a core promise of the Affordable Care Act: to make basic health protections available to all Americans for the first time. Major rate increases also threaten to cause a backlash just as the law is supposed to deliver many key benefits Obama promised when he signed it in 2010.
Friday was a very important day for health policy days. It was the last day for states to tell the federal government whether they wanted any part in running the Affordable Care Act health exchanges come 2014. The federal government did not get many takers. Some of the most closely watched states, including Florida and New Jersey, decided to leave the entire task to the federal government. All told, the federal government will run 26 of the state health exchanges. It also will partner with seven states.