More than five million Floridians were uninsured for at least a month during 2007 and 2008, according to a report by consumer group Families USA. That works out to 38% of residents under 65. Almost four out of five of those were uninsured for six months or more, the report said.
Hospital operator Tenet Healthcare Corp. has agreed to a contract with health insurer Aetna Inc. under which Aetna will use 400 doctors who work for Tenet in its health plan networks. Tenet said Aetna will employ the doctors in its provider networks and enhance the process through which the physicians gain credentials.
Miami-Dade Health Department officials have started an investigation to determine what caused the deaths of two infants in a unit at Miami Children's Hospital. The hospital has confirmed that two infants died of undisclosed causes in its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit earlier in the week. Specimens from the two children were sent to the state's health laboratory.
Gov. Sonny Perdue has warned Georgia lawmakers that the state's massive healthcare system may run out of money as more people seek help during the recession. Perdue said the House budget would lead to a potentially devastating shortfall in Medicaid, the public healthcare program for 1.5 million poor and disabled Georgians. The Department of Community Health is projecting a 9% rise next year in Medicaid enrollment as unemployment climbs and Georgians are left without health coverage. Perdue's staff said the federal stimulus money won't be enough to cover that increase without spending cuts.
Bristol (CT) Hospital has stopped accepting United Healthcare insurance after months of negotiations over reimbursement rates failed to produce a contract. The change is expected to affect about 1,800 of United Healthcare's 450,000 Connecticut members. United Healthcare includes members of Oxford Health Plans.
Most people agree changes are needed to reduce healthcare costs and improve access for patients, but views differ on how to achieve those and other goals. Here, The Tennessean provides opinions of several executives and healthcare opinion leaders in the state about what they would like to see as part of broader healthcare reform and how they would approach it.
More Iowa children would have health insurance under a healthcare bill the Iowa Senate approved with a 30-18 vote. The bill also would set up a commission to help Iowans find affordable health insurance, possibly by letting their employers join the state employees' health plan. Roughly 40,000 Iowa children are believed to lack health insurance. Most of them already qualify for the public Medicaid or Hawk-I programs, and the bill would increase efforts to identify them.
On Match Day, graduating med students around the country found out where they'll be doing their clinical training for the next few years. Just over 42% of the family medicine residency slots in this year's match went to seniors receiving their MDs this year from U.S. med schools. About 49% of the slots went to a combination of foreign med school grads, seniors at osteopathic med schools, and people who graduated from U.S. med schools in previous years. Nine percent of the slots went unfilled.
The Department of Health and Human Services unveiled details of a plan to invest more in comparative studies on the effectiveness of different medical treatments. HHS officials said it has established a 15-member council to oversee the use of some $1.1 billion set aside for "comparative-effectiveness" research under the recently passed, $787 billion economic-stimulus plan. Of the total, the Agency for Research and Quality, a research arm under HHS, will receive $300 million, and the National Institutes of Health and the Health and Human Services Department, $400 million each, the officials said.
Plans to overhaul the U.S. health insurance system must make primary healthcare a more attractive career field, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley said. Sen. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said that many areas of the U.S. currently overuse medical specialists, resulting in higher costs throughout the healthcare system. MedPAC, an outside organization that advises the Medicare program, has suggested that Medicare increase payments for primary care physicians. Sen. Grassley endorsed a similar approach.
