The Wisconsin Senate passed a sweeping healthcare reform proposal in its last session, and the legislation would have provided health insurance to nearly everyone in the state. The bill died in the Republican-controlled Assembly, but may be back on the table now that Democrats control the Senate and Assembly. The Healthy Wisconsin proposal has fervent supporters, but the unknown is whether they can persuade legislators to pass a bill of its scale when Washington is expected to move forward on healthcare reform.
North Oakland Regional Medical Centers, a 336-bed Pontiac, MI-based hospital, was sold to a large Oakland County physicians group and Flint's McLaren Health Care system, which acquires a 35% ownership of the hospital. The deal also calls for the City of Pontiac to receive 5% of any possible profits the new for-profit hospital makes, said McLaren representatives.
About one-third of the enrollees in the six major health maintenance organizations in New Jersey gave them a high rating for overall service, and 45% said they're doing a very good job handling claims, according to a report card released by the state. The ratings for most of those HMOs were about the same or slightly better than the 2007 customer survey, according to the Department of Banking and Insurance.
One day after internal medicine specialists at Health Center Associates notified West Penn Allegheny they were leaving the hospital system to join the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on Dec. 1, two West Penn administrators walked into the group's Bloomfield offices and ordered the doctors to leave the premises that day. The incident this week underscores the ongoing intense competition between the two health systems. Earlier this year, a group of six obstetrics/gynecology physicians at UPMC Mercy were locked out of their offices one month after giving notice that they were moving to West Penn Hospital.
President-elect Barack Obama can't ignore healthcare reform in his first months in office, but changes may be less ambitious than he promised during the campaign, health experts say. With the meltdown of the economy, Americans should expect changes in healthcare that are phased in or incremental—reform described as a "down payment" on greater strides in the future once the economy has stabilized.
For three-quarters of a century, Los Angeles County's flagship public hospital called a cavernous Depression-era building home. The hospital was drab, with few windows. Most wards housed six patients to a room, few were air-conditioned. But at the end of a two-day move, the county's neediest patients instead will be cared for in a $1.02-billion state-of-the-art facility.
As chief executive of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Harry Jacobson, MD, likes President-elect Obama's pledge to expand health insurance coverage. For hospitals and doctors, coverage for the more than 46 million Americans who now lack insurance could mean more people can pay their bills. At Vanderbilt, that could help lessen the financial wallop of providing $245 million worth of care to people unable or unwilling to pay last fiscal year. In Nashville's signature healthcare industry, Democratic control of the White House and both houses of Congress has raised hopes among some medical providers. But other sectors might not fare so well under Obama's administration, experts say.
Intel Corp. has introduced technology to help homebound patients with chronic medical problems. The company has announced a series of trials with healthcare organizations of specialized hardware and software developed by the chip maker. The tests are designed to show whether the new tools bring improved results in treating conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Intel also has developed software to help staff at medical call centers to remotely monitor patients' conditions and manage their treatment.
The American healthcare system often haphazardly handles cases involving uninsured immigrants who are gravely injured or seriously ill. Whether these patients receive sustained care in this country or are privately deported by a hospital depends on what emergency room they initially visit. There is only limited federal financing for these patients, and no governmental oversight of what happens to them. Instead, it is left to individual hospitals, many of whom see themselves as stranded at the crossroads of a failed immigration policy and a failed healthcare system as they try to cut through a thicket of financial, legal, and ethical concerns.
General Motors is spending more than $2 billion in cash a month and lobbying for a government bailout to keep it out of bankruptcy. And for about 100,000 of its white-collar retirees, time is about to run out on GM's gold-plated medical benefits. To conserve its dwindling cash reserves, G.M. is eliminating lifetime healthcare coverage for its legions of retirees at the end of this year. After that, former employees will be left to fend for themselves in deciding how to cover their doctor's bills and prescription drug costs.
