Thousands of people could be kicked off the state-subsidized Basic Health Plan under a bill approved by the Washington House. The bill debated would kick off thousands of people who are getting separate medical benefits from the Department of Social and Health Services.
Basic Health officials would also get authority to remove more people, based on their income, their ability to get other health coverage, and how long they've been on Basic Health.
The Iowa House overwhelmingly approved a narrowed version of a health insurance bill that sparked bitter arguments in the Senate last month.
The bill was approved without debate on a 92-3 vote. One of the main changes made by the House was deletion of a "health insurance exchange," a state commission that would have helped uninsured Iowans find affordable coverage. The bill now returns to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mike Gronstal predicted the two chambers would work out their differences.
Some doctors in retirement are taking a look at their shrunken investment portfolios and having second thoughts, but they're finding that getting back in front of patients isn't so easy. A report from the American Medical Association finds taht retired docs who want to make a comeback sometimes have to go through re-entry programs or catch up on continuing medical education, while at the same time having to contend with concerns that they won't stick around for long.
As lawmakers wrestle with how to pay for a proposed healthcare system overhaul, an emerging flashpoint of debate is whether higher-income employees should face steeper taxes on health benefits than those with more-modest income. The greatest chance for bipartisan accord, for now, is in the hands of two Senate players: Finance Chairman Max Baucus and his Republican counterpart, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa. Baucus favors taxing some employer-provided health benefits. But congressional Democrats and Republicans may have difficulty finding common ground on how to limit the tax benefits that currently favor employer-based health plans.
The physician in charge of the federal government's push to move healthcare to electronic records from paper files faces "huge challenges" as he starts his new job in Washington. That phrase comes from a paper David Blumenthal himself published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. He cited low adoption rates, high costs, technical complexities, and physician and patient concerns about privacy.
The chairmen of two Senate committees told President Obama that by early June they would finish writing legislation on healthcare to "provide coverage to all Americans." The commitment came from Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.