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A study conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) found that within 24 of the 43 reporting states in the study, two large insurance payors had a combined market share of 70 percent or more, and that overall competition in the health insurance industry is decreasing.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) has sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging that Congress maintain the level of insurance coverage offered in the House version of healthcare reform when it reconciles the competing Senate and House healthcare reform bills.
As U.S. healthcare costs inflate, factors such as insurance status, demographics and increased patient health risk must be investigated when defining ways to realign healthcare spending, according to a report released by the American Hospital Association this week.
Democrats from the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 30 unveiled a revised healthcare reform proposal—H.R. 3692, the Affordable Health Care for America Act—which the Congressional Budget Office estimated carries an $894 billion price tag for the federal government.
GE Healthcare has landed an agreement to provide IT systems to a health network in Flint, Mich.
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) has begun re-evaluating its security policies after a laptop containing sensitive BCBSA data concerning physicians was stolen in August from an employee’s car.
The recession has put more people on Medicaid and sharply increased state spending on the program, forcing state officials to cut costs even with help coming from the federal government through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., issued its long-awaited America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 on Wednesday, which would cost $856 billion over 10 years, and is scheduled to begin committee action on Sept. 22.
Tuesday, September 15 2009
A study in today's online edition of the American Journal of Public Health has found that nearly 45,000 deaths annually are associated with a lack of health insurance.
Between 2007 and 2008, the number of people covered by private health insurance decreased from 202 million to 201 million, while the number covered by government health insurance climbed from 83 million to 87.4 million, according to statistics released yesterday through the U.S. Census Bureau.
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The House of Representatives healthcare reform bill, if passed, could reduce the number of uninsured to 24 million by 2019, a 56 percent decrease relative to the current projected trend, said a recent analysis of the Affordable Health Care for America Act by the RAND Corporation.
President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) will administer nearly $600 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act awards to support construction and health IT projects in community health centers around the U.S.
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives managed to squeak out a healthcare reform victory (220-215) late Saturday evening, after ratifying the Stupak-Pitts Amendment that will prohibit abortion funding for both the public option and affordability credits.
The Senate Finance Committee voted today in favor of its version of proposed healthcare reform legislation in a 14-9 vote, including the approval of Olympia Snowe, R.-Me.
A report by the New York City-based Commonwealth Fund Commission has found there is a significant difference between the access, quality and cost of healthcare across state lines and that healthcare disparities among states continue to widen.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation have released a preliminary analysis of the Senate healthcare reform legislation, Chairman’s Mark for the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, estimating the bill would reduce federal budget deficits by $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period.
A recent survey found that Americans have mixed feelings on the “appropriate roles” for various healthcare interest groups in Washington, D.C.
Healthcare consumers believe they should have a say about the development of health IT systems in order to protect the security and privacy of their own medical information, according to a report prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A survey, published in the Sept. 14 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that 62.9 percent of physicians nationwide support proposals to expand healthcare coverage that include both public and private insurance options—where people under the age of 65 would have the choice of enrolling in a new public health insurance plan (like Medicare) or in private plans. About 27 percent supported offering private options only.
Last night, President Barack Obama made his healthcare reform speech to Congress, adamantly expressing his determination to be the final U.S. president to take up this cause.
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The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.
In 2006, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the FDA, began examining the number of medical device reports they received. Over the past two years, the number of submitted reports has increased, sparking a demand for the CDRH to make a move to electronic reporting.
A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.