Medicaid expansion to cover more working poor. Funding to boost community health clinics. Incentives to encourage more to pursue primary care careers.
Many homeless people now ineligible for Medicaid will be covered in 2014 when Medicaid expands under the new health law to include adults without children.
Provisions will cut your cost for some preventive care, help retirees get insurance, help expand Medicaid coverage.
Medicaid costs as a percentage of state budgets will nearly double — perhaps triple in “worst case scenarios” — by 2030, study finds.
Every year, the Medicare and Medicaid lose an estimated $65 billion to criminals who defraud the health care system, says fraud expert Lou Saccoccio.
The new health care law could shift billions from cash-strapped states to the federal government by changing the way Medicaid drug rebates are treated,
According to Berwick, in a transformational health care system there are no needless deaths, no needless pain, no delays, no helplessness, and no waste.
Quality improvement expert reported to be Obama’ pick for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services post.
Plan includes insurance mandate and a promise to “end discrimination” from pre-existing conditions.
Fernando Arriola, a contractor in New Orleans, can’t get coverage so he’s now working to set up a clinic for the uninsured.
Nation’s health spending as a share of the economy jumped in 2009 by 1.1 points to 17.3 percent, largest leap yet.
Sherie Brace of Seattle will lose insurance this summer when Washington is set to end coverage for her and 65,000 other low-income residents.
Organizing care is especially important for the frail elderly, who may have multiple chronic diseases.
Sarah Goodwin, 25, has chronic fatigue syndrome and relies on Medicaid for coverage.
60 million receive benefits. Half are children. About one-quarter are elderly or disabled.
Opinion: In truth, seniors are likely to be big winners if responsible health reform passes and prime victims if it fails, says columnist Howard Gleckman of the Urban Insitute.
Bed bug summit in Seattle. New York Times reporters discuss possible impact of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death on the health-care debate.
By Mary Agnes Carey
As Democratic leaders pursue their quest to provide millions of Americans with health care insurance, some advocates see an unlikely casualty of reform: youngsters now covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) whom they fear could end up with reduced benefits.
About 7 million children are insured under CHIP, which provides coverage [...]
Unapproved hormone used to prevent premature births
Seattle Times health reporter Kyung Song writes in today’s issue of the paper about a program in which Washington state’s largest Medicaid contractor is promoting the use of a synthetic hormone that is thought to prevent premature births.
But the hormone, called 17P, has not been approved by the U.S. [...]
President Obama Holds a Health Reform Town Hall in New Hampshire from White House on Vimeo.
President Obama holds a town hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to address questions and concerns on health insurance reform. He talks about ending discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, and takes on some of the rumors about health reform. August 11, [...]
The White House has released a transcript of President Barack Obama’s “Health Insurance Reform Town Hall” meeting held yesterday, August 11 at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
To read it click on “Read more…”.
Transcript released by the White House:
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Portsmouth! Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Everybody have a seat. [...]
Teachers more likely to spank disabled children
More than 200,000 U.S. schoolchildren are spanked, paddled or subjected to some other form of corporal punishment each year with disabled children receiving a disproportionate share of such punishments, according to a report prepared by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“At least 41,972 students with [...]
By Phil Galewitz
August 11, 2009
When Congress and the White House began talking about a health care overhaul, the industries that profit from the $2.5 trillion system were understandably nervous.
But as the legislation takes shape, it appears much of the anxiety was misplaced. Most of the major health care players, including hospitals, health insurers and pharmaceutical [...]
OPINION:
Joseph Califano, Chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University
As President Obama and Congress struggle to bend the rising cost curve in order to make health care available to all Americans, the history of the first great expansion of health care coverage when Lyndon Johnson drove Medicare and Medicaid through [...]
In his weekly address, President Barack Obama promises that health-care reform legislation will be passed by the end of the year and he charges that opponents of reform are spreading “the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care.”
“As we draw close to finalizing – [...]
The concept of a “medical home”—a clinic where you are followed by a team of primary care providers who know you and can coordinate your care—is getting more attention these days. (See NPR’s story on Swedish Medical Center’s “medical home” program in Ballard below.)
Here Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare [...]
The idea behind the medical-home model is to create a primary-care team that provides continuous, coordinated care to patients at one location.
Continuous chemotherapy for some cancers?
New York Times reporter Andrew Pollack writes that some doctors and pharmaceutical companies are advocating treating patients with cancer continuously.
“That would be a departure from the common practice of stopping treatment when the cancer is under control and resuming it only if the cancer worsens,” Pollack writes.
Some doctors say such ”maintenance [...]
FDA may require glucose monitors to be more accurate
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may soon require glucose monitors used by more than 11 million diabetics in the U.S. to be more accurate, Gardiner Harris reports in the New York Times.
Under current standards, these monitors can be off by as much as 20 percent putting [...]
Medicare covers little long-term care. Long-term care insurance, which pays benefits for a stay in a nursing home or assisted living facility as well as for home care, could offer some financial security.
Invisible Families: The homeless you don't see
They squeeze in with relatives, couch surf with friends or camp out in cars. More families are quietly becoming homeless, driven to the edge by a lack of jobs and affordable housing. The Seattle Times and its local news partners tackle the topic together. Project home
E-Health Records: Seattle is ahead of the curve
Health News from the Seattle Times
