At least 25 states have enacted or proposed cuts in health-insurance programs for the poor, potentially leaving millions of patients with reduced levels of care or no coverage at all. The cuts come as states are making moves to close record budget deficits while facing increased demand for services. Across the country, states have pared services under Medicaid, and 12 states have also targeted the State Children's Health Insurance Program, said a report to be released by Families USA. The group estimates that more than 250,000 people will lose care because of cuts already enacted and proposed cuts could affect millions more.
Emergency room doctors have filed a class-action lawsuit against California, saying that the state's overstretched emergency healthcare system is on the verge of collapse unless more funding is provided. Across the state, scores of hospitals and emergency rooms have shut their doors in the last decade, leading to long waits, diverted ambulances and even patient deaths. Doctors say the situation is only getting worse as state officials, struggling to balance the budget, have proposed another $1.1 billion in Medi-Cal cuts.
Naperville, IL-based Edward Hospital has received state permission to build an emergency center in Plainfield but continues to press its case for a hospital there. The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board gave Edward permission to spend $5.7 million to upgrade 15 rooms, and add an ambulance port and helicopter pad at its Immediate Care Center in Plainfield. The free-standing center would take up 7,900 square feet of the 100,000-square-foot Immediate Care building.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors heard nearly four hours of public testimony as hundreds of public health patients, nurses, and advocates urged legislators to stave off huge service cuts by asking voters to approve new taxes. But the supervisors put off a vote that would have scheduled a controversial election for June 2 and also delayed a decision on a number of proposed alternative cuts that are meant to save some health services. The city is facing a $576 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, in addition to the $118 million hole for this fiscal year.
A committee of doctors at Nashville-based Saint Thomas Hospital has raised concerns about the healthcare system that runs the facility.
The hospital's medical executive committee raised the concerns at a meeting as four-hospital Saint Thomas Health Services completes a thorough review of operations that's expected to lead to significant changes.
Nashville companies are on the leading edge of one of the significant concepts being touted as a major tenet of health reform.
Healthcare delivery has long been organized in micro systems that tend to function effectively in their own specialized universes. Earlier this year, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Kerry Weems referred to these healthcare micro systems as "silos in healthcare," and announced a demonstration project to bring about a single, comprehensive payment to cover a bundle of services. CMS announced five major health systems had been selected to participate in the project to explore the concept.
Two of the participants are owned by Ardent Health Services of Nashville.
The Senate defeated an effort by Republicans to make it harder for states to extend government-sponsored health insurance to children of legal immigrants. By voice vote, senators rejected an amendment that would have required states to extend health coverage to the vast majority of other low-income children first before covering legal immigrants. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that if states covered 95 percent of children already eligible for government-sponsored coverage, only then would his amendment allow them to insure children of newly arrived legal immigrants.
California insurers are discriminating against women by charging them more for individual health insurance than men, the city of San Francisco maintained in a lawsuit filed against the state regulators who govern them. The suit contends that Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and Cindy Ehnes, director of the Department of Managed Health Care, approved a system that allows the insurance companies to impose "gender rating" when pricing policies. The ratings resulted in women paying as much as 39% more for coverage then men.
The leaders of an Oakland, CA, union have been removed from office by their Washington bosses, the culmination of months of fighting.
The Service Employees International Union served the officers of the 150,000-member United Healthcare Workers West with a trusteeship notice. It appointed its executive vice presidents, Eliseo Medina and Dave Regan, as trustees. The two groups have been in a protracted disagreement over organizing and negotiating methods and how best to represent California's healthcare workers.
As the commercial real estate market limps along during global recession, some investors say they believe medical office buildings might serve as a crutch, as it has in past economic downturns.
Although there was a sharp drop in the sales of medical buildings in the last quarter of 2008, real estate professionals say such properties are still being viewed favorably by lenders. In recent years, landlords have begun viewing doctors as particularly desirable tenants, said Robert J. Coughlan, a principal at the Tritec Real Estate Company, which has developed more than 300,000 square feet of medical offices on Long Island in the last 20 years.
