The government needs to create a public health insurance plan because many parts of the country are monopolized by a single private health insurer, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. Sebelius said that a new public health insurance plan would benefit consumers by providing more competition in the market and holding down costs. In "many areas in the country, the private market is monopolized by one carrier," Sebelius told the Wall Street Journal. "You don't have a choice for consumers. And what we know in any kind of market is a monopoly doesn't give much incentive for other innovation or for cost-effective strategies."
The Obama administration is considering ways to persuade medical students to pursue careers in primary care by raising their pay, and is channeling them to work in underserved rural areas. And the White House has already set aside $2 billion for community health centers through the economic stimulus package. But in the interim a small but growing number of doctors are trying to take matters into their own hands by spending more time with patients, emphasizing prevention and education to keep patients healthy, and handling many medical problems without referrals to specialists.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has outlined healthcare legislation that would provide generous government subsidies to families buying coverage, place significant responsibilities on employers, create a new long-term-care program for millions of people with disabilities, and perhaps reach into the profits of insurance companies. The 170-page bill, still labeled a draft, is a liberal approach to healthcare reform and potentially is quite expensive. It does not identify how the expansion of health coverage would be paid for, except to require businesses to provide insurance for workers or pay penalties.
In light of a federal proposal to shine light on hidden payments to doctors, a Boston-based research group says South Florida medical sales reps are doing a "crummy" job of complying with a county regulation regarding their relationship with Miami-based Jackson Memorial Hospital. The sales reps—and anyone else attempting to sell to the Jackson system—are required to register as lobbyists and detail how much they spend on Jackson employees.
Republicans started to complain about the size, shape, and cost of the emerging Democratic plans to remake the healthcare system, but Democratic leaders said they still intended to push a bill through the Senate this summer. And the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and its senior Republican, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, expressed confidence that they could come together on a bill producing near-universal coverage.
After a round of cost cutting by a new management team, the parent corporation of Boca Raton (FL) Community Hospital has regained profitability. BRCH Corp. earned $8,434 on revenue of $96 million in its fiscal third quarter ending March 31, and improved from a $20.9 million loss on revenue of $92.5 million for the same period of 2008, according to the nonprofit's report to its bondholders.