Single-Payer Health Care Is Coming To America-Are We Ready?
Speaking at a recent conference, Mark Bertolini, CEO and Chairman ofAetna Insurance, announced that the end is near for profit driven health insurance companies. “The system doesn’t work, it’s broke today. The end of insurance companies, the way we’ve run the business in the past, is here.”
Patients going to Maine ERs with toothaches, other dental problems
Posted Feb. 29, 2012, at 4:26 p.m.
Two patients recently visited Dr. Wendy Alpaugh’s dental practice in Stonington after complaining to their doctors of painful facial swelling. Two expensive CAT scans later, both wound up in the dentist’s chair for a root canal.
“If they had realized how much less it would have cost them if they’d maintained the preventive care,” Alpaugh said, trailing off.
Toothaches and other avoidable dental problems were the primary culprit behind more than 830,000 emergency room visits nationwide in 2009, a 16 percent jump from 2006, according to a reportreleased this week by the Pew Center on the States.
In Maine, dental disease was the top reason Medicaid recipients and uninsured people ages 15-24 visited ERs in 2006, Pew reported, citing a study by the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. That year, tooth decay, abscesses and other dental problems were responsible for 3,400 emergency visits by Medicaid patients. The study highlighted poor access to preventive and acute dental care as major drivers.
Blue Shield seeks $10.5 million in damages from O.C. doctor group
Blue Shield of California alleges that an Irvine physician group, now owned by UnitedHealth Group, refused to treat some of its members and tried to switch them from Blue Shield coverage.
By Chad Terhune, Los Angeles Times
March 1, 2012
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The nonprofit insurer said Wednesday that it had filed a demand for binding arbitration with Monarch HealthCare of Irvine, the largest physician group in Orange County, which contracts with 2,300 independent doctors and serves 176,000 patients. Optum, a unit of Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth, acquired Monarch in November.
Blue Shield alleges that Monarch, under its new ownership, refused to treat some of its members and tried to switch them from Blue Shield coverage — in violation of its contract. "There is an active recruitment of our members to UnitedHealth," said Juan Davila, the San Francisco insurer's senior vice president for network management.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mo-blue-shield-dispute-20120301,0,2422719,print.story
Brown gets no promise of federal help for Medi-Cal
Governor says Sebelius hints that there may be other ways for the state to save money on health insurance for the poor.
By Anthony York, Los Angeles Times
10:00 PM PST, February 26, 2012
Reporting from Washington
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Sunday threw cold water on Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to ask California's poor to contribute to their federally subsidized healthcare — payments the governor has proposed to save the state more than $500 million a year.
Brown met with Sebelius for 45 minutes in Washington, where he renewed his pitch for more flexibility in how the state handles Medi-Cal, its health-insurance program for the poor. The governor wants co-pays from recipients for emergency-room visits as well as routine trips to the doctor and dentist, beginning in October.
"Everybody has to have some skin in the game," Brown said of his co-pay plan. "For some people, they're so destitute that's impossible. OK, I understand that. But … I think there's a wiser path than the one we're on."
The Obama administration turned down a similar request earlier this month. On Sunday, Brown said, Sebelius told him that there were legal obstacles to his proposal but hinted that there were other ways the state may be able to save money in its Medi-Cal program, which helps more than 7 million Californians. Brown said the secretary did not specify what those ways might be.
Sebelius' office did not respond to requests for comment.
Brown met with Sebelius for 45 minutes in Washington, where he renewed his pitch for more flexibility in how the state handles Medi-Cal, its health-insurance program for the poor. The governor wants co-pays from recipients for emergency-room visits as well as routine trips to the doctor and dentist, beginning in October.
"Everybody has to have some skin in the game," Brown said of his co-pay plan. "For some people, they're so destitute that's impossible. OK, I understand that. But … I think there's a wiser path than the one we're on."
The Obama administration turned down a similar request earlier this month. On Sunday, Brown said, Sebelius told him that there were legal obstacles to his proposal but hinted that there were other ways the state may be able to save money in its Medi-Cal program, which helps more than 7 million Californians. Brown said the secretary did not specify what those ways might be.
Sebelius' office did not respond to requests for comment.
New York protest tries to kick off revival of Occupy movement
By Gianna Palmer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A few dozen Occupy Wall Street protestors marched on the world headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. on Wednesday, a lukewarm kick off to a nationwide day of revival for the movement loosely organized around denouncing economic inequality.
Police on motorcycles escorted the peaceful but loud group of about 50 protestors marching from the park outside the New York Public Library to nearby Pfizer, close to Grand Central Terminal.
"Shame on Pfizer! You're a bunch of liars!" chanted the protestors as they milled around barricades in front of Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, and were watched by about 50 police officers.
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