Organizations representing primary care and family physicians, a statewide nurses union and medical students are backing a bill that would make affordable and comprehensive healthcare coverage a constitutional right in Michigan. Uninsured patients are going without care and overwhelming emergency rooms, the groups said at a series of news conferences. If approved by voters, the measure would require the Legislature to "pass a plan that, through public or private measures, controls healthcare costs and provides for medically necessary preventive, primary, acute and chronic healthcare needs.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland hopes to add nearly 21,000 uninsured children onto Medicaid, a step in the effort to insure an additional half-million more residents by 2011. Two other newly established state programs may add 5,000 children as well. A governor's panel is expected to soon recommend ways to get coverage for half-a-million Ohioans and how to make health insurance more affordable for small businesses.
One in five Kentucky adults did not have health insurance early in 2008, according to the Kentucky Health Issues Poll. The statewide poll also found that more than one in four Kentucky adults had been uninsured at some time in the previous 12 months. Northern Kentucky had the lowest percentage of uninsured adults, but the highest percentage of adults enrolled in Medicaid, the poll found.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is concerned that legislation now before a conference committee to revamp the state's healthcare system might actually drive up costs instead of cutting them.
Healthcare costs continue to rise at "unsustainable" levels, and the Legislature's proposal would raise those costs further by expanding eligibility for state health programs, Pawlenty said.
Metropolitan Health Plan, an insurance program for the needy in Hennepin County, MN, required a $6 million emergency bailout to meet minimum reserves and stay in compliance with state law. An antiquated billing system was blamed for much of the financial shortfall after Metropolitan learned from auditors that it was overpaying some care providers and underbilling others. The plan has about 25,000 enrollees who are part of government-backed programs such as Medicaid, MinnesotaCare and General Assistance Medical Care.
A startling number of people—especially women—living primarily in the Deep South and in Appalachia saw a drop in life spans beginning in 1983, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study found that found that 4% of the male population and 19% of the female population experienced either declines or stagnation in their life expectancy in the ’80s and ’90s. In addition to race and poverty, other contributing factors include an increase in diabetes, cancers and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, researchers said.
A contaminated blood thinner from China has become a worldwide public health problem, with 10 other countries detecting the often-toxic ingredient, according to federal investigators. The compound, which mimics the real blood thinner heparin but which costs less to make, may have been added deliberately somewhere along a production chain that began on farms in China. Food and Drug Administration officials issued a warning letter that banned future U.S. shipments from the plant in China that supplied the widely used blood thinner until the safety issues are resolved.
New research shows that in hospitals and other healthcare facilities with MRSA, aggressive screening of healthcare workers should be combined with other measures to help reduce infection rates. The study’s authors looked at data from 169 studies of 33,318 healthcare workers in 37 countries, and found that 4.6 percent of the workers carried MRSA and, of these, 5.1 percent had clinical MRSA infections.
The quest to contruct a hospital in Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish got a major boost when up to $25 million in state redevelopment grants were allocated for the project. The financing comes with restrictions, however, that highlight deepening divisions over how large the hospital should be and who will run it. Ochsner Health System has offered to build a 20-bed hospital at a cost of about $20 million, which would be covered by the grant money. Another proposal from the Franciscan Mission of Our Lady Health System is for a $78 million, 60-bed hospital and medical office building that would require more than $50 million in loans. While Parish President Craig Taffaro would not explicitly endorse the Ochsner proposal, he said the parish cannot afford to be weighed down by debt as it struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
Butler (PA) Memorial Hospital's new emergency room is scheduled to open May 5. The ER project is one part in a $155 million multiyear, multi-element expansion and upgrade of the health system's facilities. The upgraded ED will be 50 percent larger than the current facility and include an additional 10 beds. The biggest element of the expansion is a $140 million acute care tower that is expected to open in December 2009.
