Nowhere to Go, Patients Linger in Hospitals, at a High Cost
By SAM ROBERTS
Hundreds of patients have been languishing for months or even years in New York City hospitals, despite being well enough to be sent home or to nursing centers for less-expensive care, because they are illegal immigrants or lack sufficient insurance or appropriate housing.
As a result, hospitals are absorbing the bill for millions of dollars in unreimbursed expenses annually while the patients, trapped in bureaucratic limbo, are sometimes deprived of services that could be provided elsewhere at a small fraction of the cost.
Health Care CEO's Lavish Pay Package Shows How the 1% Get Paid - Business - The Atlantic Wire
John Hammergren, the CEO of health-care giant McKesson Corp., made $46 million last year thanks to one of the most generous executive pay packages in his, or any other business. Gary Rivlin of The Daily Beast has a breakdown of some of the outrageous provisions that contribute to Hammergren's outrageous wealth including some figures that at least one compensation consultant calls "excessive." When someone whose job is to craft multi-million dollar pay packages for corporate CEOs thinks you're overpaid, you're probably overpaid.http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2012/01/health-care-ceos-lavish-pay-package-shows-how-1-get-paid/46881/
We are all Adara Scarlet
Adara's Insurance
I met the pretty, petite, 27-year old from Colorado, Adara Scarlett, three days before she stood in front of a Washington, DC hotel as part of the October, 2011 Occupation of Freedom Plaza, Stop the Machine protest against our for-profit health care delivery system. She bravely told her story that October 12th while standing outside the hotel. Inside, Wall Street investors were greedily fine tuning schemes for even greater profits arising from their health care investments. Adara, standing alongside Dr. Margaret Flowers, captivated the crowd with her saga: Nine years earlier, her father, burdened with unpaid, insurmountable medical bills, committed suicide.http://commonsense2.com/2011/11/healthcare/we-are-all-adara-scarlet/
Republican lawmakers reject cuts to Maine group homes
Posted: January 4Updated: Today at 12:57 AM
GOP and Democratic opposition to the plan will keep facilities for the elderly and disabled open and force lawmakers to seek cuts elsewhere.
AUGUSTA — Republican lawmakers have rejected the most controversial piece of Gov. Paul LePage’s plan to balance theDepartment of Health and Human Services’ budget, which would have cut funding for homes that serve the elderly, the mentally ill and people with substance abuse problems.
http://www.pressherald.com/news/Republican-lawmakers-reject-cuts-to-Maine-group-homes.html
Our View: Managing costs better than cuts for DHHS
Posted: January 4Updated: Today at 9:23 PM
Maine could work with the sickest Medicaid recipients and reduce the DHHS shortfall.
Of all the numbers that have tumbled out of Gov. LePage’s proposal to fill a $220 million budget shortfall with cuts toMaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, one of the most striking is also one of the smallest.
Five percent. That’s the percentage of MaineCare recipients who are responsible for 55 percent of the program’s costs. The governor’s plan could cut some benefits for all recipients and cut all coverage for thousands of others to make the budget balance, but Maine could still be left with a small population of very sick people who need more and more costly care.
http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/Our-View-Managing-costs-better-than-cuts-for-DHHS.html
Published on The New Republic (http://www.tnr.com)
The Health Care Mandate Really Was a Mistake
- Paul Starr
- January 2, 2012 | 12:00 am
If Democrats had it to do all over again, would they really frame the individual health-insurance mandate in the 2010 health law in the way that they did? In “The Mandate Miscalculation,” a recent article I wrote for The New Republic, I argue that Congress and the president made three miscalculations in one—a miscalculation about the courts, another about the politics, and a third about the policy itself. But my good friend Jonathan Cohn will have none of it and insists that Democrats got the mandate right.
I understand the impulse to defend the Affordable Care Act when it is under unrelenting attack. But a mistake is a mistake, and supporters of the law—particularly Democratic candidates facing tough races in 2012—need to think through alternatives to the mandate in view of both the upcoming Supreme Court ruling and this fall’s election
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