For Illegal Immigrant, Line Is Drawn at Transplant
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Without treatment to replace his failing kidneys, doctors knew, the man in Bellevue hospital would die. He was a waiter in his early 30s, a husband and father of two, so well liked at the Manhattan restaurant where he had worked for a decade that everyone from the customers to the dishwasher was donating money to help his family.
He was also an illegal immigrant. So when his younger brother volunteered to donate a kidney to restore him to normal life, they encountered a health care paradox: the government would pay for a lifetime of dialysis, costing $75,000 a year, but not for the $100,000 transplant that would make it unnecessary.
Doctors face Medicare cut on Jan. 18
WASHINGTON — Nearly 650,000 doctors caring for millions of seniors will get a steep cut in Medicare payments Jan. 18 unless a gridlocked Congress issues a reprieve, program officials said yesterday.
A provision waiving a scheduled 27.4 percent cut in physician reimbursement was included in the payroll tax legislation now ensnared in partisan political wrangling between the House and Senate.
The change I believe in
By Katrina vanden Heuvel, Published: December 20
When President Obama was elected more than three years ago, many progressives had great expectations for what would follow. Many wanted to believe that one person, in one flying presidential leap, could transform the mess our political system had become. That he, alone, could deliver.Three years later, progressives have learned the hard way that this isn’t, and never will be, the case. Democratic presidents succeed at advancing progressive causes when independent progressive movements push them to do so. Success at the ballot box is not a victory in and of itself. True victory comes when vibrant, sustainable movements create an energy around ideas that the White House has to chase. Those movements can be built on hope, but they are sustained with engagement of the kind that can outlast any given battle, any given term and any given presidency.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-change-i-believe-in/2011/12/20/gIQAdIBD7O_print.html
LePage 'confident' cuts to get federal OK
Posted: December 21Updated: Today at 7:28 AM
Some of Paul LePage's proposed MaineCare reductions require a U.S. government waiver, but critics doubt Maine will qualify.
AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage said Tuesday that he's "absolutely confident" he can get federal approval to make three budget cuts he has proposed to help close a $221 million deficit in the Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.pressherald.com/news/governor-confident-cuts-to-get-federal-ok_2011-12-21.html
LePage drops in on DHHS budget talks, blasts lawmakers
Gov. Paul LePage speaks at a news conference, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011, at the State House in Augusta, Maine. He said that he's proposing the cuts to Medicaid because the state is not taking in enough tax revenues to continue to support the program.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Legislators began to parse Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal to overhaul the MaineCare program Tuesday, but not with the haste the governor would like.
As members of the Appropriations and Health and Human Services committees held the first of two work sessions on the proposed Department of Health and Human Service’s supplemental budget, LePage took the unprecedented step of stopping by the session. The governor did not address the committees, but said during a break that lawmakers’ questions to DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew were unproductive.
http://bangordailynews.com/2011/12/20/news/state/lepage-drops-in-on-dhhs-budget-talks-blasts-lawmakers/
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