Pre-existing Condition? Now, a Health Policy May Not Be Impossible
By WALECIA KONRAD
SIX years ago, Jerry Garner, 45, a real estate agent in Gowen, Mich., underwent a kidney transplant. He recovered nicely, and thanks to diligent adherence to his drug regimen and frequent checkups, he has been healthy ever since — “a miracle,” said his wife, Stephanie.
But last year, the Garners were starting to believe that their good fortune had run out.
Mr. Garner’s insurer asked that he fill out a survey, but somehow this piece of mail slipped through the cracks at the Garner household. As a result, he lost hishealth insurance. (Ms. Garner, 44, and three of the children — their oldest child is grown — were covered under a different policy.) But because of his pre-existing condition, Mr. Garner proved impossible to insure.
Health Law Waivers Draw Kudos, and Criticism
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials say they were expecting praise from critics of the new health care law when they offered to exempt selected employers and labor unions from a requirement to provide at least $750,000 in coverage to each person in their health insurance plans this year.
Instead, Republicans have seized on the waivers as just more evidence that the law is fundamentally flawed because, they say, it requires so many exceptions. To date, for example, the administration has relaxed the $750,000 standard for more than 1,000 health plans covering 2.6 million people.
In Search of Cuts, Health Officials Question NICU Overuse
By EMILY RAMSHAW
An unlikely battlefield in Texas’ budget war is a hushed pink-and-blue hospital nursery, where 1- and 2-pound babies bleat like lambs under heating lamps and neonatal nurses use tiny rulers to measure limbs that are no bigger than fingers.
State health officials, searching for solutions to Texas’ multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, have set their sights on these neonatal intensive care units, or NICUs, which they fear are being overbuilt and overused by hospitals eager to profit from the high-cost care — and by doctors who are too quick to offer pregnant mothers elective inductions and Caesarean sections before their babies are full term.
Amen to the following Nick Kristof column:
The Japanese Could Teach Us a Thing or Two
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
When America is under stress, as is happening right now with debates about where to pare the budget, we sometimes trample the least powerful and most vulnerable among us.
So maybe we can learn something from Japan, where the earthquake, tsunami and radiation leaks haven’t caused society to come apart at the seams but to be knit together more tightly than ever. The selflessness, stoicism and discipline in Japan these days are epitomized by those workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, uncomplainingly and anonymously risking dangerous doses of radiation as they struggle to prevent a complete meltdown that would endanger their fellow citizens.
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