The Connecticut House of Representatives has passed legislation designed to cut healthcare costs by allowing more people to join the state employee health insurance pool. The bill would permit municipalities, nonprofit groups and small businesses with fewer than 50 employees to voluntarily join the state's pool, creating a bargain on costs and saving money. Opponents say the bill could place in jeopardy $54 million in projected savings that Connecticut expects to receive under recent contract negotiations with health insurers.
Under current Tennessee law, the cutoff age for dependent health benefits is 24 for full-time students and age 19 for others. But the Tennessee Medical Association is expected to ask state lawmakers to extend the age limit to 25 and to include those who aren't in school full time. If approved, Tennessee would join approximately a dozen states that have passed laws allowing young adults to remain on their families' polices up to age 25.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is appealing a judge's ruling that temporarily blocked the governor's expansion of a health program to subsidize 147,000 parents and caretakers. A state panel twice has refused to approve rules for the healthcare expansion, and Judge James Epstein issued a preliminary injunction that effectively halted the expansion. Blagojevich argues that 25,000 people will immediately lose health coverage because of the injunction.
The U.S. Senate plans to vote soon on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which would make it illegal for employers and insurance companies to deny applicants jobs and healthcare coverage because they are genetically disposed to a disease. Several lawmakers have been pushing the issue for years, saying that advances in genetic research make it crucial that people are protected from discrimination. Under the legislation, sponsors of health coverage cannot request or use genetic information to adjust premiums or to determine eligibility.
With growing support from lawmakers, doctors are prodding the medical device industry to design equipment so that it is suitable for use on children. President Bush signed a law in September 2007 that offers financial incentives to companies that design devices for children, and gives regulators more power to scrutinize the use of adult-size devices in children. The profit potential for the device companies is limited, however, because the law allows experimental kid-size devices to be sold without full federal approval only if they're used to treat rare diseases. Also, kids are healthier than adults and as a result a much smaller market to begin with.
The House has moved to impose a one-year moratorium on new Medicaid rules that lawmakers argued would add to the burdens of states and healthcare providers. The Bush administration backs the rules as cost-saving measures, and there is a veto threat from the White House. The bill would "thwart these efforts of the federal government to regain fiscal accountability and integrity in Medicaid," according to a statement from the White House. The proposed changes have met opposition from states, healthcare providers and advocates for poor, however, who say they will shift costs from the federal government to the states and create new hardships for the needy.
The U.S. military's health insurance program has been swindled out of more than $100 million in the Philippines, where doctors, hospitals and clinics have worked with American veterans to submit bogus claims. At the center of the case is Tricare, a Pentagon-run program that insures 9.2 million current and former service members and dependents. Healthcare providers in the Philippines filed claims for medical services never delivered, inflated claims by as much as 2,000% and shared kickbacks with retirees.
Fitch Ratings has upgraded the underlying ratings of $544.4 million in outstanding debt of the Sarasota (FL) County Public Hospital District. Fitch upgraded the ratings from A to A+, and attributed the move to management's continued improvement in operating performance, the district's ability to levy taxes, strong liquidity, leading market share and strong service area characteristics. The district owns and operates the 607-bed Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Texas Health Resources intends to build a $100 million hospital in the Lake Worth area, with plans for roughly 100 inpatient beds. The new hospital is expected to open in three to five years, at which point a hospital eight miles away in Azle would be converted to a largely outpatient facility. Executives hope that the new hospital will draw patients from all over fast-growing northwest Tarrant County because of the facility's accessibility.
Mercy Health System, which serves southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, has won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Mercy Health was one of the two healthcare systems among the five winners this year, and Mercy representatives say the award is the culmination of a roughly seven-year effort. The results of the effort can be seen in how Mercy Health ranks in benchmarks. The system lowered infection rates from catheters to 0.5%, compared with the best-practice benchmark of 1.6%; lowered mortality rates for pneumonia to 1.2%, significantly below the best-practice benchmark of 4%; and has a total mortality rate of 2.3% that matches the rate of the top 15% of hospitals nationwide.
