Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to temper their own differences over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending. As a piece of legislation, the two-year package is among the biggest in history. But the size and substance of the stimulus package remain in dispute, as House Republicans argued that it tilted heavily toward new spending instead of tax cuts.
The Senate is expected to approve a bill that provides health insurance to about 11 million low-income children. Senate Democrats, after easily defeating Republican attempts to narrow the bill, predicted they had the votes to renew and expand the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program. Presently, the $25 billion program covers 7 million children living near the poverty level who do not qualify for Medicaid. Under the Senate bill and similar legislation passed by the House, an additional 4 million youngsters would be eligible for discounted care.
Advocate Health Care, the Chicago area's largest provider of medical care, has reached an agreement on providing free and discounted medical care to uninsured patients as part of a class action lawsuit it has been battling. Under the settlement, which an Advocate spokeswoman said still has to be approved by a Cook County Circuit Court judge, the hospital operator would provide charity care assistance to individuals earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level or $82,500 for a family of four. Advocate operates eight hospitals in the Chicago area.
Raleigh, NC-based health system WakeMed expects to sell as much as $175 million in tax-free bonds this week, a step that suggests a slight thawing of the credit market. WakeMed, however, had to jump through additional hoops to get the sale done, including paying higher interest rates and hiring bond-research agencies to rate its fiscal health. WakeMed delayed the bond sale in fall 2007, when financial turmoil disrupted credit markets and brought such sales to a halt. Now hospital officials think its solid credit rating and history will attract bond investors who have been reluctant to take risks.
In a glimpse of the economy's toll on the investment portfolios of some of Chicago's largest academic medical centers, a series of financial reports shows three of these hospitals losing hundreds of millions of dollars. Moody's Investors Service said in a report that the University of Chicago Medical Center's investments have lost more than 25% of their value. Cash and unrestricted investments fell to $625 million as of Nov. 30, from $842 million on June 30—the end of the hospital's fiscal year. The cash positions at Rush University Medical Center and Northwestern Memorial Hospital also have been hit hard, Moody's reports show.
SSM St. Joseph Hospital of Kirkwood, MO, has set March 30 as the date it will move six miles southwest and become SSM St. Clare Health Center. Four years in the planning, SSM St. Clare Health Center's new campus has a 154-bed hospital, heart institute, cancer care, outpatient procedure center, outpatient diagnostic center and medical office building.
If the present House version of President Barack Obama's stimulus package passes Congress, Florida could get $4.25 billion over two years to help expand medical services for the state's poor. In a study released by Families USA, researchers say that provisions of the House bill could provide $87 billion to bolster hard-hit state Medicaid programs, including $4.25 billion for Florida for the period from October through 2010.
Unless healthcare reform becomes a reality, most Americans can expect to pay health insurance premiums that will double by 2016, a new report claims. Left unchecked, the costs of employer-paid health insurance will jump from $11,381 to $24,291 in the next seven years, according to the report by the Public Interest Research Group. Wasteful spending and inefficiencies are what is fueling the trend, the report contends.
Tucked inside the $819 billion economic stimulus package that passed the House are provisions to spur the adoption of electronic medical records. The $20 billion for health information technology would be, by far, the biggest government infusion to enable medical information to follow patients back and forth among doctors' offices, hospitals, and other providers. If successful, experts say, electronic medical records would improve quality, reduce duplication of services, and limit errors—ultimately saving the nation hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
Charges of bias and inappropriate behavior flew between Naperville-based Edward Hospital officials and members of a Illinois regulatory board just minutes after the board for the third time in five years rejected Edward's request to build a hospital in southwest suburban Plainfield. Edward had requested permission to build a 130-bed, $242 million facility on 60 acres it owns. Edward already operates an immediate-care center there, and won permission from the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board to upgrade a portion of that center to a free-standing emergency room. But the board denied Edward's request to build a hospital on the site, saying there are more than enough hospitals nearby.
