Some lawmakers want national healthcare reform to include new constraints on health savings accounts, a move that banks and insurance companies warn could discourage saving at a time when it is needed more than ever. Proposals in the Senate would set tighter limits on contributions to HSAs, and would require more oversight of how money in them is spent. Annual contribution limits this year are $3,000 for individuals and $5,950 for families, but one proposal would reduce it to the deductible on an account holder's health insurance plan, if that deductible is less.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick plans to announce a spending proposal that retains medical coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants who are at risk of losing it, and will also agree to ensure dental coverage for another 700,000 of the state's poorest residents. State-subsidized coverage for the two groups has been endangered as Massachusetts lawmakers struggled to craft a budget amid an economic downturn that has sharply curtailed tax revenues. The governor will propose the healthcare spending for legal immigrants as an amendment to the state's $27.4-billion budget.
The poor and uninsured will have greater access to pediatric care through a new health center that is a collaboration between Slidell (LA) Memorial Hospital and St. Charles Community Health Center, healthcare providers say. The St. Tammany Community Health Center is slated to open July 1 at Slidell Memorial. Administrators are planning to expand the center's services within the first few years, eventually offering adult primary care and moving to a larger location.
Health centers that serve the poor are among the first places the federal stimulus package is being spent. The stimulus law sets aside $2.5 billion for free and low-cost health clinics, and about $500 million is already being spent. The White House has promised another burst of money this summer.
A new sense of urgency is shaping the U.S. government's fight against Medicare fraud as the Obama administration strives to sell the public on expanding healthcare to cover uninsured Americans. Cabinet officials are pushing an emerging two-pronged approach, focusing on fraud prevention as well as prosecutions. The latest indictments follow a recently announced partnership between the Justice and Health and Human Services departments.
As Washington policymakers focus on ways to squeeze unnecessary costs out of America's healthcare system, much of the talks are about fundamental changes in the way providers are paid. Under the proposed system, care would be bundled, so providers get paid for treating an illness in an integrated system of care. Such bundled services are often easiest to handle in an integrated delivery system where doctors work for the organization that includes a continuum of care from primary care clinics to full-service hospitals.
In a fractious labor movement fraught with rivalries and mutual suspicion, SEIU head Andy Stern's close association with President Obama has given Stern cachet that may prove important in the competition to lure new members. The SEIU spent $60 million to help elect Obama, according to the union. Stern said the group deployed 100,000 volunteers during the campaign, including 3,000 who worked on the election full time. Now in the White House, Obama has continued to derive political benefits from the union.
A newly established four-year medical school in downtown Camden, NJ, jointly run by Rowan University and Cooper University Hospital, will expand both the South Jersey medical community and Camden's educational hub, officials said. The deal allows Cooper, which recently opened a $220 million patient pavilion, to further expand its operations. Officials there have stated their desire to take on the major Philadelphia teaching hospitals, keeping South Jersey doctors and patients from having to cross the Delaware River.
Illinois is notorious for low payments from the Medicaid program for the poor. Payments are funded by state and federal taxes but administered by Illinois health officials. Though payments can vary depending on the service provided, it's not uncommon for a physician to be paid $25 to $75 for a Medicaid patient's routine visit—20% to 30% less than what the Medicare health insurance for the elderly pays and less than half the $100 to $125 or more a private insurer would pay for the same service.
Caritas Christi Health Care, the Catholic hospital system founded by the Archdiocese of Boston, is ending its joint venture with a Missouri-based health insurer. The move comes at the insistence of Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, who has decided that the relationship represented too much of an entanglement between Catholic hospitals and abortion providers. The development is a setback for Caritas because it represents the undoing of one of the steps its new chief executive had announced as part of his effort to turn around the hospital system's finances.
