A top official in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration said Tuesday that California will begin transferring poor children into a cheaper healthcare plan on Jan. 1, despite concerns from some lawmakers and advocates that the state's plan is inadequate. California is eliminating the Healthy Families program next year and shifting nearly 900,000 children into Medi-Cal, which reimburses doctors at lower rates, in hopes of saving $73 million annually. The transition will happen gradually, starting with the easiest cases.
Maine is at the forefront in trying to improve health care for the patients who make multiple trips to the hospital an d drive up costs for everyone else, a national health care expert said Tuesday. Jeffrey Brenner, director of the Institute of Urban Health at Cooper Hospital in Camden, N.J., spoke to dozens of Maine health care providers during a meeting at Maine General's Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care. "Maine is on the cutting edge of trying to figure this out," he said. "There's a real sense of collaboration and teamwork in Maine."
Nine nurses and supervisors were shown the door when they arrived for work at the South Central Kansas Medical Center on Monday after they were laid off. In a letter sent to all employees, administrators laid part of the blame for the cost cutting move on Obamacare. "With the Affordable Care Act being rolled out and many outside forces demanding accountability for improved outcomes and better systems for healthcare, we have to make changes or we will not survive," the letter reads. Seven of the laid off workers were full-time employees. One was part-time and the other was an on-call worker.
Aetna and other insurers that initially fought President Obama's health-care overhaul are reversing course, funding a group planning to spend $100 million to help the uninsured get coverage under the law. Enroll America, a nonprofit created two years ago, has gathered support from the insurers that opposed the law and consumer organizations such as Washington-based Families USA that supported it. The group will reach out to the 43 million uninsured whose participation will help strengthen the funding formula that holds the 2010 Affordable Care Act together. The new customers are expected to help offset added costs for the insurers from new regulations and taxes included in the law.
Oklahoma's lawsuit contending a key part of President Barack Obama?s 2010 health-care reform legislation is blocked by the state's constitution should be thrown out, lawyers for the U.S. said in a court filing. "Oklahoma lacks standing to sue the federal government to deprive its residents of the benefits of federal law," U.S. Justice Department attorneys argued in papers filed yesterday in federal court in Muskogee, Oklahoma. State Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a Republican, filed the lawsuit in January 2011, about 10 months after the president signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that made the acquisition of basic health insurance mandatory for almost all Americans. That part of the law takes effect in 2014.
Two years and $8.4 billion into the government's effort to get doctors to take their practices digital, some unintended consequences are starting to emerge. One is a lot of unhappy doctors. In a big survey by Medscape this summer 38 percent of the doctors polled said they were unhappy with their electronic medical records system.