Clinics that specialize in dispensing prescription painkillers would fall under more scrutiny under a bill House lawmakers passed Monday targeting the illegal drug trade. The legislation now heads to the state Senate. The bill steps up enforcement on clinics getting most of their money by prescribing large number of narcotic painkillers to patients, sometimes addicts, for little or no medical reason. The Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency estimates that the number of suspect clinics has jumped from none a few years ago to about 150 now. Crackdowns in neighboring states likely drove clinics to Georgia.
Do you remember the "Louisiana Purchase?" I don't mean Thomas Jefferson's acquisition of land from Napoleon, but rather Democrats' acquisition of Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D., La.) support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Landrieu, critics believe, pledged her vote in exchange for gaining $200 million additional federal funds for Louisiana's Medicaid program. Except that, due to a drafting error, the law ended up giving Louisiana $4.3 billion in extra Medicaid funds—more than twenty times the assigned amount. How this happened, and how Congress failed to fully fix it, is a microcosm of our new health law's many flaws.
Republican legislative leaders announced a proposal to allow people to open personal health premium accounts that would help them purchase health insurance on the free market. Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, and Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, said their plan is aimed at helping people afford health insurance costs outside of the health insurance exchanges that are included under the federal Affordable Care Act, which Hann and Gottwalt oppose. Hann and Gottwalt chair health care committees in the two houses and said their plan has strong support among Republicans who control the Legislature.
Federal and city officials have confirmed plans for a long-assumed land deal in which the city of New Orleans will take ownership of the downtown VA Medical Center in exchange for the Mid-City parcel where the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is building a new medical complex. Ryan Berni, Mayor Mitch Landrieu's press secretary, said the transaction likely won't occur until 2014, when the new VA complex is slated to open. He said the mayor's legal office has determined the swap will not require City Council approval. Both the VA property and the shuttered Charity Hospital have for months been rumored as potential city acquisitions as the Landrieu administration contemplates a new City Hall.
The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System has reached out of New York state for the first time, creating a strategic alliance with the Hackensack University Health Network in New Jersey. The system said the deal establishes its first formal relationship in New Jersey, while giving the Hackensack University Health Network access to New York City and Long Island. Both nonprofits will retain their independence, including boards, management and financial bottom lines. The two organizations hope to create cooperative programs to promote quality and patient safety.
"If we solve our health care spending, practically all of our fiscal problems go away," said Victor Fuchs, emeritus professor of economics and health research and policy at Stanford University. And if we don't? Dr. Fuchs, who has been called the dean of American healthcare economists, has spent five decades studying the healthcare problem. In his view, what is needed is the sort of major change that comes once in a decade, perhaps, or even just once in a generation. But change, he believes, will not bubble up from within the healthcare system itself. Here is a recent conversation with Dr. Fuchs about the nation's healthcare costs.