Miami-Dade citizens annually pay about $350 million in taxes for indigent healthcare but all of that money goes to Jackson Health System, which is government run and owned. In Broward, public hospitals also get all the healthcare tax money ? about $205 million a year. Advisors to Gov. Rick Scott think that's the wrong way to pay for care for the uninsured and poor. They believe "tax dollars should follow the patients," meaning whatever hospital treats the uninsured should get the tax money to pay for that patient. A powerful business lobbying group, Associated Industries of Florida, agrees. "Taxes are intended to provide access to care for the poor, not to subsidize inefficient operations, bricks and mortar, or lousy governance," says Alan Levine, the former head of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, who prepared a report for Scott on healthcare. "Irrespective of who operates Jackson, the tax dollars should go where the care is being provided."
A surge in the value of its investment portfolio helped Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan avoid a financial loss in 2010, but the nonprofit continued to lose money on its insurance business. Blue Cross said Tuesday it made $222 million in 2010 on revenue of $19.2 billion, slightly below 2009's profit of $233 million. But the state's insurer of last resort lost $168 million on its insurance lines, driven by a $200 million loss on its Medicare supplemental business and a $51 million loss on individual policies for those under 65, said Paul Mozak, the Blues' vice president of finance. Some products were profitable, including the company's group insurance plans, he said.
Californian authorities have identified 25 "permanently medically incapacitated" inmates being treated at outside hospitals who are candidates for parole because they no longer pose a threat to the public. Californians will pay more than $50 million to treat them this year, between $19 million and $21 million of that for guards' salaries, benefits and overtime, according to data from the federal receiver who oversees California prison healthcare. The final amount will depend on how many of the guards are paid overtime. If the prisoners were released from custody, the medical costs would shift to their families if they could afford to pay, or to other government programs if they could not. The expense of guarding the patients would be eliminated.
It's a well-known complaint among consumers and healthcare advocates: The soaring cost of medical care is forcing millions of Americans to drain their savings, run up credit card bills, declare bankruptcy or lose their homes to foreclosure. A report out Tuesday that examines the problem in California says the nation's year-old healthcare law ?- currently under assault by congressional Republicans -- would help protect people in the Golden State from financial catastrophe. In its study, the consumer group Families USA points out that the law would cap how much people with insurance must spend out of their pockets for healthcare services, starting in 2014. If the law were to take effect this year, the group says, the caps would be $5,950 for an individual and $11,900 for a family of any size. Low-income people would pay less than higher earners.
Cleve L. Killingsworth, who abruptly resigned last March as CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, received $8.6 million in compensation last year from the state's largest health insurance company, including $1.4 million in severance pay. The pay package was detailed in a Blue Cross filing this morning with the Massachusetts Division of Insurance. In a separate statement, the insurer's former chairman indicated for the first time that the terms of Killingsworth's departure had been negotiated. Killingsworth drew a salary of $273,040 for his two and a half months at the Boston-based insurer last year, a $922,480 bonus for his work in 2009, and $7.4 million in additional compensation, including severance and retirement pay that had been accrued over his six years at Blue Cross.
Missouri regulators would have more authority to suspend dangerous doctors, and patients would be able to better research physicians, if bills filed in the state Legislature become law. At a hearing to introduce legislation in the state Senate this week, the agency that licenses and regulates doctors -- the Board of Registration for the Healing Arts -- said it supported the effort to reform the state's lax, secretive system of physician discipline. A news organization testified in favor of greater transparency. A doctors' group chafed at one key provision of the bill that would give the board the ability to issue fines. Last year, a Post-Dispatch investigation into patient safety in Missouri showed that the healing arts board is one of the nation's weakest and least transparent.