Relief Seen for Jobless and States in Health Care Plan

(The New York Times)WASHINGTON — The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts intended to jolt the nation out of recession. For Democrats, it is also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured and the unemployed, in ways [...]

How Do Hospitals Get Paid? A Primer

The New York Times- Few Americans probably have any inkling of how their neighborhood hospital prices the myriad of distinct services rendered patients. I doubt many patients can understand the long hospital bills that feature exotic items such as “cath porta cath perit” or “OP6-central line reposit,” and so on. Even fewer still likely [...]

Boomers Versus the Rest

(Newsweek) Obama says he doesn’t want to mortgage our children’s future. If he means it, he’ll have to cut retirees’ Social Security and Medicare benefits. Who wins? Probably no political platitude is more invoked or more ignored than this: let’s do it for the kids. Everyone recognizes the moral power of making sacrifices today for [...]

California Is Urged To Require Nursing Homes To Display Star Ratings

(The Los Angeles Times) L.A. County supervisors say patients would be better informed. But critics say the federal ratings can be misleading and don’t account for violations caught by the state. Los Angeles County supervisors have asked state officials to compel California nursing homes to prominently post their new federal star ratings, much in the [...]

House votes health insurance for 4 million more children, including many non-citizen kids

WASHINGTON (AP) — Making a down payment on President-elect Barack Obama’s promise of universal health coverage, the House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to expand government-sponsored insurance to 4 million more children in working families with income too high to qualify for Medicaid. Between 300,000 and 600,000 of the new enrollees could be non-citizen children of legal [...]

Struggling States Slashing Health Care for Poor

(Chicago Tribune) Recession compounds woes as millions lose jobs, insurance WASHINGTON — Even as President-elect Barack Obama plans an ambitious push to expand health coverage nationwide, states around the country are slashing health services to their poorest residents amid the economic downturn. The cutbacks in public assistance come as millions of Americans are losing their jobs [...]

Obama’s Unhealthy Choices

(Newsweek) He can’t control long-term entitlement spending unless he curbs health care, which accounts for a quarter of the federal budget. Barack Obama talked somberly last week about getting the federal budget under control once the present economic crisis is past. By simple arithmetic, that means he’ll have to confront the rapid growth of health [...]

Too sick to work? Need health care? Take a number

Tuesday December 23, 12:07 pm ET By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press Writer Gov’t policy makes disabled workers wait 24 months for Medicare as medical bills pile up WASHINGTON (AP) — Master toolmaker John McClain built machine parts with details so small they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Then a lump on his neck turned out [...]