Tenet Healthcare Corp. has appointed Joe Thomason as CEO of Tenet's Centennial Medical Center, a 118-bed acute care hospital in Frisco, TX. Thomason, 49, has served as the hospital's interim CEO since March. Thomason recently served as CEO of RHD Memorial Medical Center in Dallas and Brownsville Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas. Before that, he was COO for Sierra Medical Center, a 354-bed acute care hospital in El Paso, TX.
The AARP has decided to suspend its 401(k) match for at least nine months. According to a recent study by the Grant Thornton compensation and benefits consulting practice, 29% of employers have altered or intend to alter their 401(k) match this year. Two-thirds of those will eliminate it (often temporarily), 22% will reduce it, and 11% will bump it up.
Lawmakers say President Obama's overhaul of the nation's healthcare system is unlikely to be completed by the White House's August deadline. Democrats and Republicans said the administration's healthcare reform proposals are moving forward on Capitol Hill, but they cautioned against rushing into a spending plan that could cost trillions of dollars over the next decade. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, however, said she remains optimistic about Congress sending the legislation to the White House before the year ends.
There are 16 physicians are members of the House and Senate as lawmakers struggle to overhaul the nation's healthcare system. Of the doctors elected to Congress, 11 are Republicans and 5 are Democrats. Two serve in the Senate and 14 in the House, 7 of whom are on the three committees preparing a healthcare bill. But they have taken different lessons from their experiences in medicine, and they do not agree on what a bill should look like.
Boston Medical Center is bracing for dramatic financial losses, which some fear will force it to slash programs and jeopardize care for thousands of poverty-stricken families. The hospital projects that it will lose $175 million in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, an 18% operating loss that is unusually large even in Massachusetts' up-and-down hospital industry. The hospital estimates that it will close this year $38 million in the red, its first loss in five years.
Senior House Democrats have settled on a proposal to cover a significant portion of the cost to overhaul the nation's healthcare system by raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) said that the plan could generate as much as $540 billion over 10 years. Married taxpayers earning more than $350,000 a year in adjusted gross income and single filers making more than $280,000 a year would pay a surtax of at least 1%.