Health Care Reform Articles - October 5, 2011

HCA May Face Big Revenue Hit If Feds Approve Texas Medicaid Plan

TOPICS: HOSPITALS, MEDICAID, UNINSURED, STATES, HEALTH COSTS

By CHRISTOPHER WEAVER

KHN Staff Writer

OCT 03, 2011

Private Texas hospitals, including at least 21 facilities owned by the publicly traded Hospital Corporation of America, could see a plunge in supplemental Medicaid payments if a state proposal to revamp its health care program for the poor is approved by the federal government.

HCA, the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain, drew $657 million in supplemental Medicaid payments from Texas in 2010, making it especially vulnerable.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/October/04/HCA-Texas-Medicaid-Plan.aspx?p=1

Vermont Edges Toward Single Payer Health Care

TOPICS: INSURANCE, HEALTH REFORM, STATES, MARKETPLACE

By JESSICA MARCY

KHN Staff Writer

OCT 02, 2011

Starting now, Vermont begins building a single-payer health system that will move many state residents into a publicly financed insurance program and pay hospitals, doctors and other providers a set fee to care for patients.

Proposed by the governor and passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature, the new program will replace the traditional insurance plans currently used in the state and the traditional fee-for-service reimbursements, giving the state a system different from its 49 counterparts and more like its neighbor to the north, Canada. 

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/October/02/Vermont-single-payer-health-care.aspx?p=1

A Difficult Pill to Swallow: The path to single payer health care through challenging concentrated wealth

By Margaret Flowers - Posted on 22 September 2011

By Margaret Flowers, M.D.

The efforts in recent years to pass health care reform at the state and national levels have provided important lessons for the single payer movement. Corporate control of the political process and media message has proven to be a primary obstacle to effective health reform at the federal level. These obstacles also exist at the state level and are compounded by the need for federal waivers in order to implement a single payer system in the states. We need to confront concentrated corporatism that blocks real health care reform together with those whose work for a fair economy, environmental protection and a non-military foreign policy is blocked by the same obstacle.http://october2011.org/blogs/margaret-flowers/difficult-pill-swallow-path-single-payer-health-care#.Tom-L0HgvKs.facebook