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.
A new report from UnitedHealth Group Inc. takes aim at the way U.S. doctors get paid, saying the nation could save up to $1 trillion over the next decade in health care costs if it were possible to "unleash the potential of payment reform initiatives." The report, which comes out Wednesday, analyzes the savings as well as likely pitfalls to adopting a number of different methods to move away from the current "fee-for-service" approach, which pays doctors based on the number of services they provide.
A top official of Anne Arundel Medical Center told state lawmakers in Annapolis that medical center considered cancelling all surgeries last weekend, because of a medication shortage. Dr. Barry Meisenberg, who chairs quality improvement for the medical center, talked about the decision during a state legislative hearing in Annapolis today. He said the hospital had a shortage of drugs that are used to revive patients after surgery.