In reasserting his support for a new government health plan for the uninsured, President Obama stoked the fears of private insurers that they would not be able to compete with a Medicare-like option and might gradually be priced out of existence. The Obama administration has sought to reassure the industry by pointing to the three dozen states that offer their employees a choice between government-backed insurance options and a menu of commercial policies. But health policy experts are deeply divided about whether the state employee plans bear any meaningful resemblance to the public plan options being considered.
As momentum gains for health reforms, insurers hope to turn it to their advantage by supporting a proposal that everyone buy coverage. Private health insurance faces a bleak future if this proposal is not adopted: The customer base for private insurance has slipped since 2000, when soaring premiums began driving people out. The recession has accelerated the problem.
Tenet Healthcare Corp. will not renew its lease for NorthShore Regional Medical Center in Slidell—its last remaining hospital in Louisiana—when it expires next May. "It was strictly about looking at Tenet's strategic business goals, looking at how our different facilities align with our strategy," said Emily Kinney, a spokesperson for Dallas-based Tenet. "We're trying to grow our in-patient services in our stronger markets."
Six years after the death of an ambitious joint effort to make Miami a major healthcare destination for wealthy foreigners, a new group has formed to try to do the same thing for less money and without any attempts to disguise the fierce competition among local hospitals to lure well paying international patients. The upshot may not only be a boost to the economy but also improved healthcare for local residents as providers seek to upgrade services to compete on a global scale.
Once considered recession-proof, many hospitals are suffering in these tough economic times, but some for-profit hospitals are doing surprisingly well, speakers said at the annual South Florida Healthcare Summit. Nine in 10 hospitals have made cutbacks, said Caroline Rossi Steinberg, a trends specialist with the American Hospital Association. The biggest cuts have been in administrative expenses, but almost half of the hospitals have reduced staff and one in five has cut services. Speaking to more than 200 people at the event, Steinberg said 43% of hospitals surveyed reported a negative net return for the first quarter, compared with 26% for the same period last year.
While some researchers have been studying decisions for decades, the tools they have developed may be available only to patients in clinical trials. It's still rare for patients to get decision support as a routine part of care, and giving patients the education they need to fully understand their cancers, possible treatments, and themselves is unrealistic, experts say. Instead, decision experts provide questionnaires and reports that help patients evaluate priorities and treatments. Some include video of patients discussing their experiences.
The hearing process for deciding whether Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan can raise rates for about 400,000 of its health insurance customers begins in June. Blue Cross is seeking rate increases averaging between 31% and 56% for people who buy their own policies. Attorney General Mike Cox and staffers with the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation want to review those requests and determine if they are justifiable under state law.
The government needs to create a public health insurance plan because many parts of the country are monopolized by a single private health insurer, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. Sebelius said that a new public health insurance plan would benefit consumers by providing more competition in the market and holding down costs. In "many areas in the country, the private market is monopolized by one carrier," Sebelius told the Wall Street Journal. "You don't have a choice for consumers. And what we know in any kind of market is a monopoly doesn't give much incentive for other innovation or for cost-effective strategies."
The Obama administration is considering ways to persuade medical students to pursue careers in primary care by raising their pay, and is channeling them to work in underserved rural areas. And the White House has already set aside $2 billion for community health centers through the economic stimulus package. But in the interim a small but growing number of doctors are trying to take matters into their own hands by spending more time with patients, emphasizing prevention and education to keep patients healthy, and handling many medical problems without referrals to specialists.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has outlined healthcare legislation that would provide generous government subsidies to families buying coverage, place significant responsibilities on employers, create a new long-term-care program for millions of people with disabilities, and perhaps reach into the profits of insurance companies. The 170-page bill, still labeled a draft, is a liberal approach to healthcare reform and potentially is quite expensive. It does not identify how the expansion of health coverage would be paid for, except to require businesses to provide insurance for workers or pay penalties.
