"Medical gift cards" are a trendy gift this holiday season. The gift cards can be used for doctors' visits or deductibles, prescription co-pays, contact lenses and even elective surgery.
Allergist/immunologist and Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Cole contends that while there are myriad factors involved in the rising costs of delivering quality care, the primary reason is the healthcare providers themselves.
The damage that the human body can survive these days is as awesome as it is horrible: crushing, burning, bombing, a burst blood vessel in the brain, a ruptured colon, a massive heart attack, rampaging infection. These conditions had once been uniformly fatal. Now survival is commonplace, and a large part of the credit goes to the irreplaceable component of medicine known as intensive care.
Premiums for employer-based health insurance rose 8.3 percent in California in 2007, well ahead of the national gain of 6.1 percent, according to the annual California Employer Health Benefits Survey. The survey found that the 8.3 percent increase was more than double the state's inflation rate of 3.4 percent.
Cleveland Clinic has received a $5 million donation aimed at supporting continued innovation in healthcare. The gift, which establishes the Clinic's first chief executive chair, will allow the hospital to respond quickly to opportunities not covered in the general budget, said the Clinic's president and chief executive.
Almost 1.1 million Minnesotans can expect to spend more than 10 percent of their pretax incomes next year on healthcare, according to a report. For a quarter of those state residents, the cost will be more than 25 percent of pretax incomes.
As California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez sought the endorsement of two major labor unions for his plan to overhaul healthcare in the state, he added several provisions to the legislation sweetening the deal for union members. The legislation as approved gives unions unilateral authority to create and operate trust funds to provide employee healthcare.
Philadelphia City Councilman Brian J. O'Neill said that Fox Chase Cancer Center's planned $800 million, 25-year expansion was not threatened by delays that have pushed final passage of needed legislation into 2008.
Standard & Poor's has lowered its rating on bonds issued on behalf of Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, PA. S&P cited "an unexpected operating loss" in fiscal 2007 and the first quarter of 2008 and "persistently weak liquidity." The lower rating affects about $179 million in debt.