Thursday's announcement from the University of California, Los Angeles, of a $100 million medical student scholarship fund should inspire all of us to question the fact that medical education in the United States is paid for largely by student debt. The new merit-based scholarships, established by entertainment executive David Geffen, will cover all educational, living and even some travel expenses for a fifth of next year's entering medical school class, some 33 students. Mr. Geffen and school officials hope that eventually the school will be able to pay for all medical students and free them from the obligation to take out student loans.
A Houston doctor was convicted Thursday for writing prescriptions for unnecessary home health care treatment that became the basis for $5.2 million in phony Medicare claims. Ben Echols, who already had been disciplined by the Texas Medical Board four times, could face up to 40 years in prison when sentenced early next year. Echols was accused of prescribing home health care for patients who did not need it. Evidence presented at his trial this week convinced jurors that Echols' signature on prescriptions or "plans of care" used by Family Healthcare Services and Houston Compassionate Care companies, resulted in the phony Medicare claims being paid.
As Democrats and Republicans argue about how to spread the pain of health-care spending cuts, one group has been curiously excluded from the discussion: doctors. There's good reason to change that. Everybody likes doctors. That public adulation is one reason why the 2010 health-care law, which imposed immediate and heavy cuts on hospitals, drugmakers and insurers, left doctors relatively untouched. A 1997 law that reduces doctors' Medicare payments is consistently overridden by Congress. And none of the proposals for entitlement reform now circulating around Washington calls for significant sacrifices from physicians. It's worth asking whether doctors, who account for almost one-fifth of health spending, really need the special treatment.
Eleven Republican governors, including Florida's Rick Scott, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and Arizona's Jan Brewer want to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss the federal health overhaul, including ways to make expanding the Medicaid rolls and setting up online health exchanges more affordable for states with tight budgets. The letter requesting the meeting comes after the Obama administration said Monday that states can do a partial Medicaid expansion but that they wouldn't get the three years of 100 percent federal funding provided under the law. Scott had previously requested to meet with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to discuss his concerns that the law could burden state taxpayers.
Pennsylvania will not set up its own health care exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act, at least not for now, Gov. Tom Corbett said Wednesday, putting the state on a course to join others led by Republicans that will let President Barack Obama?s administration run its exchange. Setting up a state-based exchange would be irresponsible, Corbett said, as he faulted federal authorities for what he called inadequate answers to his questions about cost and other issues. "Health care reform is too important to be achieved through haphazard planning," Corbett said. "Pennsylvania taxpayers and businesses deserve more. They deserve informed decision making and a strong plan that responsibly uses taxpayer dollars."
Better coordination among doctors and hospitals. More transparency in medical costs and outcomes. New models of care, like sharing your doctor's appointment with a small group of patients suffering from the same condition. These are among a litany of critical checkpoints that need to happen, healthcare leaders say, to take the country from the post-election relief many advocates of health reform felt to making the 2010 law to expand health care access a success. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement released a report Wednesday outlining the path hospitals, doctors, insurers, and states need to take to bridge the gap between the care that now exists and the care that health reform is striving for.