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House panel OKs bill to delay Medicaid cuts
American Medical News - 04-28-2008 - A bipartisan bill to delay Medicaid rules that would cut billions in federal funding for hospitals and physician training has attracted support in the House. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved the legislation unanimously on April 9. The measure would prevent until April 1, 2009, the implementation of seven Medicaid rules introduced since 2007 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. One of the regulations would eliminate on May 25 Medicaid funding for graduate medical education -- an estimated $1.78 billion over five years.
Medicare data should stay private, government says in appeal
Los Angeles Times - 04-21-2008 - The Bush administration is appealing a groundbreaking court ruling that would permit disclosure of Medicare billing records so patients could compare doctors' expertise and efficiency. Release of such information is advocated by consumer groups, employers and the health insurance industry, but is opposed by organizations representing doctors. Consumer and business groups said they were disappointed by the administration's appeal, but the American Medical Association has petitioned to join it.
Medi-Cal cuts cause ripple effect across health care landscape
The Press Democrat - 04-20-2008 - A mother sits in the waiting room of the local community clinic, desperate for a doctor to examine her newborn's jaundiced skin. Next to her sits a construction worker with diabetes, and next to him, an aging woman desperate for a more effective pain cocktail to mask her rheumatoid arthritis.
Bills press for health mandates; foes predict rise in uninsured
Sacramento Bee - 04-20-2008 - Three months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "year of health care" ended with a whimper, dashing hopes of universal coverage in California, a series of bills that would increase mandates on insurers and implement market changes are moving through the Legislature.
States Look to Tobacco Tax for Budget Holes
New York Times - 04-21-2008 - To keep the state’s landmark universal health coverage plan afloat, Massachusetts lawmakers are looking to tap an increasingly popular source of financing for health-related initiatives: tobacco taxes. If the state raises its tax by as much as $1 a pack, it will join New York — and possibly a number of other states — in enacting significant increases this year. The speaker of the Massachusetts House, Salvatore F. DiMasi, a Democrat, pushed the increase, to $2.51, through the chamber this month, and the State Senate president, Therese Murray, and Gov. Deval Patrick, also Democrats, have signaled support.
President Is Rebuffed on Program for Children
New York Times - 04-19-2008 - The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday.
Leader at Los Angeles medical center is out
Los Angeles Times - 04-21-2008 - Antionette Smith Epps has left Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, according to Los Angeles County Department of Health Services officials. Epps was brought in to help save the Los Angeles medical center, but wound up instead presiding over its closing. Her departure is the latest in a string of recent setbacks in the county's beleaguered public healthcare system.
U.S. report finds sluggish increases in quality of care
American Medical News - 04-28-2008 - The pace of health care quality improvement appears to be slowing, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's fifth annual report compiling federal and state data on more than 200 quality metrics.
Part D standards aim to encourage e-prescribing
American Medical News - 04-28-2008 - Doctors who want to go paperless when ordering drugs for their Medicare patients now have a set of federal standards on how to do it. Those who are prescribing electronically already have a year in which to become compliant with the rules.
New TB threat: Doctors worry about powerful strains resistant to drugs
San Jose Mercury News - 04-20-2008 - More than two decades after she treated the lepers of Molokai as a young medical student in Hawaii, Dr. Masae Kawamura remembers the smothering fear others felt toward their infection.
New hope for Alzheimer's sufferers
Daily Mail - 04-11-2008 - Doctors are calling for a clinical trial of an experimental drug treatment that it is claimed can reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease "in minutes". U.S. researchers say the treatment allowed an 82-year- old sufferer to recognise his wife for the first time in years.
Earnings Appear Unhealthy for Insurers
Wall Street Journal - 04-20-2008 - Health insurers were once a refuge for investors in rocky economic times. But as the managed-care industry kicks off what is shaping up to be a shaky earnings season this week, those days appear to be over.
