Hospitals fighting for good health care
Hospitals and their staffs say they are fighting to preserve good health care, but that the Governor #39;s plans make it impossible.

By: WTNH

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Hospitals fighting for good health care - Video

MODESTO -- When a severe rash sent Ryan McGee of Salida to an emergency room last month, he didn't have health insurance to help pay the bill.

"It cost $500 just to be there, and I haven't even gotten the bill from the doctor," said McGee, 25.

He wishes he had insurance, but his new minimum-wage job as a store clerk doesn't include medical benefits, and McGee hasn't bought it on his own.

That's going to change in January, when President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act will begin requiring every person in the United States to have health care insurance.

The new law, often called Obamacare, mandates that large employers offer health benefits to all their full-time employees.

That won't help McGee, however, because he works only part time.

His employer, Modesto's Boyett Petroleum, used to hire primarily full-time store clerks. But this year, it began shifting toward part-timers such as McGee to avoid the new health care law's potential costs. It's one of many calculations that businesses across the country are making.

"We're making a conscientious effort to hire part-time people," acknowledged Dale Boyett, the company's president. He said hiring part-time workers "is a cultural shift for us," but it is necessary until his company knows all the costs of providing health care to full-time employees.

The petroleum supplier employs about 70 office workers, and Boyett said "they've always had health benefits." It also has about 100 retail workers at its 12 gas stations/convenience stores, but currently it offers health benefits only to its retail managers not clerks.

Starting in January, Boyett Petroleum and other employers will have to offer health insurance to all its full-time staff members, no matter what kind of work they do. But it won't have to pay for its part-timers' insurance, thus the hiring shift.

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Health care reform looks expensive to Modesto-area workers, businesses

Crain's Detroit Business is seeking nominations for Health Care Heroes, a special report on health care professionals that will run in the Aug. 12 issue.

The program will honor top-notch medical innovators and patient advocates.

Our winners will be chosen in five categories:

Corporate achievement in health care: Honors a company that has created an innovative health benefits plan or that has solved a problem in health care administration.

Advancements in health care: Honors a company or individual responsible for a discovery or for developing a new procedure, device or service that can save lives or improve quality of life.

Physician: Honors a physician whose performance is considered exemplary.

Allied health: Honors an individual from nursing or allied health fields who is deemed exemplary by patients and peers.

Trustee: Honors leadership and distinguished service on a health care board.

A panel of health care judges will choose the winners.

Nominations, which are due May 13, can be made at http://www.crainsdetroit.com/nominate. Statewide nominations accepted.

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Heroes in health care sought

Published: Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 3:42 p.m. Last Modified: Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 7:08 p.m.

"It's a hefty bite for the people in Southeast Volusia," said Joe Benedict, chairman of the Southeast Volusia Hospital District's Board of Commissioners.

The owner of a $115,000 homestead property that falls in the Southeast Volusia Hospital District can expect to shell out $196.95 in hospital taxes. Just over the line in the Halifax Hospital Taxing District, the owner of the same home would pay only $81.25.

But two big changes could be in store for Volusia County's hospital taxing districts, and either or both could lighten local tax bills.

Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach is looking to partner with a larger hospital system that would reduce the tax burden for Southeast Volusia. Meanwhile, the federal health care law could move the Sunshine State toward universal coverage, eliminating much of the reason why hospital taxing districts were created in the first place.

Gov. Rick Scott has endorsed tapping into $51 billion in federal funds and expanding Medicaid, a state-federal program that helps provide health care to the needy, to cover more than 1 million Floridians. Lawmakers so far have shot down expanding Medicaid, but they are debating alternative proposals that would extend coverage by subsidizing private insurance.

Republican Sen. Joe Negron's plan would allow the state to still tap into federal funds, but competing proposals would forego federal funds and cover far fewer patients.

Volusia County is unique in that it has three hospital taxing districts, covering the Daytona Beach area, Southeast Volusia and West Volusia. Collectively, Volusia County taxpayers contribute $47.3 million to care for indigent patients and subsidize other health care services.

When the districts were created starting in the 1920s, Florida was still developing, and health care was radically different, said Dominic Calabro, president and CEO of Florida TaxWatch.

Times have changed. Medicare and Medicaid social programs that helped to extend coverage to the elderly and needy were created during the 1960s.

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Health care changes could lower hospital taxes

By David Williamson and Max Macaluso, Ph.D. | More Articles April 14, 2013 |

From the impact of Obamacare to cutting-edge research, biotech buyouts to FDA decisions, the Motley Fool's health-care team sits down each weekto discuss the most fascinating developments in health care and their implications for long-term investors. In this week's edition, the team talks about the coming trend of penalizing unhealthy employees, the importance of drug branding, the avian flu outbreak, one stock investors need to watch, and more.

In the following segment, health-care analyst David Williamson discusses the week's biggest movers and shakers, including a trio of stocks receiving the FDA's new "breakthrough" designation. Watch and find out what it means for investors.

What macro trend was Warren Buffett referring to when he said "this is the tapeworm that's eating at American competitiveness"? Find out in our free report: "What's Really Eating at America's Competitiveness." You'll also discover an idea to profit as companies work to eradicate this efficiency-sucking tapeworm. Just click here for free, immediate access.

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Health Care's Biggest Movers and Shakers

Two companies are battling for a $200 million-plus contract to provide health care to Tennessee's prison inmates.

One came in almost $16 million cheaper and has a long but controversial history of providing those services. The second, more expensive company has struggled to explain how it has enough experience to do the job. It also happens to employ the wife of the head of the Tennessee Department of Correction.

The second company, called Centurion, won.

Department of Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield's wife, Latrese, works for the company as an inmate re-entry coordinator in Georgia. But that fact was never disclosed in Centurion's bid, nor was it mentioned at a protest hearing by the losing bidder last week, whose executives were confused about losing out on a job they had already been doing for more than two years.

Only two companies submitted bids, Centurion and Corizon. Corizon's bid came in at about $226 million while Centurion came in at about $241 million.

The Department of Correction maintains that there is no conflict and that Derrick Schofield recused himself from having any say in the awarding of the contract.

"We're confident that the process was appropriate and fair and resulted in the selection of the best-qualified bidder," said TDOC spokeswoman Dorinda Carter. "Ms. Schofield is not in a position of making decisions regarding the contract and she's not an executive-level employee."

Derrick Schofield has disclosed his wife's employment on ethics disclosures for the past three years. He declined to respond for this story through the agency spokeswoman.

Centurion said it also did not see a conflict but declined to answer specific questions about its bid and the omission of her employment in bidding documents.

"She is not now or has ever been involved in our Tennessee work," said Steve Wheeler, president of Centurion. "As it is under protest, it is not appropriate for me to answer any questions about the procurement."

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TN inmate health care deal raises conflict issue

Regarded as one of the world's foremost health care economists, Dr. Gail Wilensky had a clear message last week for a sellout crowd at Oak Hills Country Club: Obamacare is the law of the land now, so don't waste time focusing on overturning or repealing it. That opportunity has come and gone.

Instead, she strongly recommended the health care industry should now concentrate on the nitty gritty of the Affordable Care Act's implementation. Over the next few years, she said, the specifics of exactly how the law will be translated into everyday application will be written and codified in Washington. Those likely to be directly impacted by the new rules and regulations should engage with the rulemaking process soon to have any chance of affecting how the law will be applied.

It's an enormously large piece of legislation, but, despite that, many of the important details about how you actually make it operational haven't yet been written, Wilensky told a room full of many of San Antonio's highest-echelon health care executives. That means implementing legislation needs to get drafted. If you're really interested in affecting change, this is where you pay attention, right now, she added, urging vigilant monitoring of and participation in the development of detailed regulations under the law.

Wilensky is an economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE, an international health foundation. She directed Medicare and Medicaid from 1990 to 1992 and was a senior health and welfare advisor to President George H.W. Bush. She also advised presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on healthcare issues and policy.

She spoke March 28 at the annual meeting of the San Antonio Medical Foundation, which manages the land and other assets of the South Texas Medical Center.

Besides the detailed regulatory language that must now be developed, Wilensky said, the usual pattern in Washington of clean up legislation will soon follow. Bills to fix unintended problems with the original legislation could start winding through Congress as soon as 2014 but certainly no later than 2015, she said.

And that's likely to happen every year for the rest of the decade, she said. This process, too, is an opportunity for the industry to weigh in with its desired changes.

Wilensky said she believes the Affordable Care Act has good and bad points. On the plus side, she noted, it provides health insurance to millions who do not currently have it. In many cases, these are people who might allow what should be manageable health problems to spiral into much more serious problems because they cannot afford care.

The uninsured will ultimately get care when their health problems get bad enough, she said, and society at large will end up paying for it anyway. That has been an expensive problem for hospital systems for years.

One big question regarding the law, Wilensky said, is whether some states will opt out of the expansion of Medicaid, the joint federal/state health care program for poor children and the disabled.

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Health care economist: Obamacare the law of the land; adjust to it