Several area hospital leaders say they need more time to determine how a new bill to control health-care costs will impact their institutions, but they agree action is necessary to make health care more affordable.

The first-in-the-nation 349-page bill was signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick on Aug. 6.

"It's an extremely complex bill, and we don't really know how it's all going to play out," said Patrick Muldoon, president and CEO of HealthAlliance Hospitals. "We said consistently that it's terrific we have health-care reform, but now we have to figure out how to make it affordable because the system we have now is unsustainable."

Norm Deschene, president and CEO of Lowell General Hospital, said the bill meets the goals of the hospital community to deliver quality and affordable care.

"The bill clearly recognizes that there needs to be a number of different approaches to meeting those goals; we agree with many of those programs," wrote Deschene in an email.

The bill is intended to save up to $200 billion in health-care costs over the next 15 years by moving the state toward a payment system in which doctors receive an annual budget for each patient's care, known as a "global payment system," rather than having them charge a fee for each service or test provided. Like the 2006 universal-access law; however, it could be years before its changes are fully implemented and its impacts known.

While the law's critics say it represents a thicket

The law says medical costs must grow at the same rate as the state's economy until 2017. After that, health-care costs must grow even slower.

A state board, known as the Health Policy Commission, will help hospitals meet these goals. Deschene credits lawmakers for preventing the board from automatically taxing or punishing hospitals that don't meet the benchmarks. Hospitals will instead be required to file a performance-improvement plan.

As a last resort, the bill does allow the board to fine providers up to $500,000 for failing to file or faithfully implement its improvement plan.

Continued here:

Health-care reform's impact as yet unseen

Afew weeks after Jarrid Starks ended his Army service in May, he went to an office in Albany, Ore., to enroll for veterans health-care benefits.

Starks brought medical records that detailed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a twisted vertebra and a possible brain injury from concussions. Other records documented his tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where his bravery fighting the Taliban was recognized with a Bronze Star for Valor.

None of that was enough to qualify him for health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

That's because Starks left the military this year with an other-than-honorable discharge his final year of service scarred by pot smoking and taking absences without leave (AWOL).

He was told to fill out a form, then wait possibly a year or more while officials review his military record to determine whether he is eligible for health care.

"I was absolutely livid," Starks, 26, recalls. "This just isn't right."

Starks is among the more than 20,000 men and women who exited the Army and Marines during the past four years with other-than-honorable discharges that hamstring their access to VA health care and may strip them of disability benefits.

Some were booted out of the military before they deployed.

Others served in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, then struggled upon their return with drug abuse, unauthorized leaves and other misconduct that placed them among the most troubled members of the generation of veterans who fought in the long wars launched after 9/11.

Starks ended his military career this spring with a weeklong stay at Madigan Army Medical Center under psychiatric care. Then, he was escorted to the front gate of Joint Base Lewis-McChord carrying a brown paper bag packed with a 90-day supply for six prescription drugs that included antipsychotics, antidepressants, pain pills and beta-blockers.

Read more:

Troubled veterans left without health-care benefits

Three health care trends underlie the recently announced plans of two local hospitals to create a countywide health care system, according to a health policy and administration professor at Penn State.

The increasing need for hospitals to adopt information technology, assume financial risk based on patient outcomes and to coordinate care across a variety of settings is forcing hospitals all across the country to consolidate, said Dennis Shea, in the aftermath of the announcement by Altoona Regional Health System and Nason Hospital.

The Affordable Care Act has accelerated the trend, he said.

Hospitals need to get bigger so they have the extra resources to handle the changes, he said.

They need those resources to afford the expensive investments in information technology, to take on the risk of getting paid based on patient outcomes and to vertically integrate - providing neonatal to nursing home services - which allows them to coordinate care better, according to Shea.

"These are three very powerful forces," Shea wrote of IT, risk acceptance and care coordination in an email. "Organizations that are able to pull this all together will be able to give much better health care at lower cost."

They can provide "a connected range of services" helping patients transition from hospital to rehab to home "without slipping backward" into expensive repeat hospitalizations, he said.

They can also maintain the kind of continual research that allows them to keep up with best practices, he said.

There will be problems with hospitals left behind, Shea noted.

"These trends make it very, very difficult for smaller organizations to thrive," he said.

Originally posted here:

Professor talks about alliance of Nason, ARHS

Health care is among the few sectors of the national economy where unionization is actually increasing. One local sign: nurses at St. Louis University Hospital and Des Peres Hospital recently pulled off rare votes to organize workers at local health institutions.

Collective bargaining talks have begun, and may not be easy. Nurses want not only increased pay and benefits, but also improved staffing ratios they say will enhance the quality of patient care.

We expect the tenor of the discussions to be professional as nurses put forward their proposals for improvement to patient care, said Andrew Prediletto, principal negotiator for the nurses at SLU Hospital. We hope to reach agreement as soon as possible, but there is no set timetable.

The votes came against a backdrop of setbacks for unionization efforts at local hospitals in recent years. Nurses at Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Creve Coeur voted to decertify their union affiliation in 2007. Nurses at St. Louis Childrens Hospital voted down an attempt to unionize in 2003.

SLU Hospital nurses voted by a 3-to1 margin in early June to join the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Missouri, an affiliate of the 175,000 member National Nurses United, the nations largest union and professional association of registered nurses. Des Peres Hospital nurses voted by 2-to-1 margin three weeks later to unionize.

The bargaining agent will represent about 600 registered nurses at SLU and 250 nurses at Des Peres Hospital.

Nurses see this process as an opportunity to make improvements in staffing, said Prediletto, whose union is headquartered in suburban Washington. We anticipate discussing an improvement of wages benefits and working conditions Weve had meetings at both hospitals, and weve issued proposals.

Phillip Sowa, the chief executive of SLU Hospital, said in a written statement that additional days of bargaining are being scheduled for the coming months. We will continue to negotiate with them in good faith, he said, and we remain focused on our ultimate goal of providing high-quality health care to this community.

The hospital maintains that it offers competitive wages and benefits, and that its management promotes a positive work environment.

Walter Kopp, an independent hospital consultant based in San Anselmo, CA., said the nurses union likely will face tough talks.

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Hospital unions votes in St. Louis set stage for tense talks

11-08-2012 06:47 Henry Schein CEO Stanley Bergman on the companys success in the pet health-care market and the impact of the health-care law and taxes on the companys outlook.

Excerpt from:

Henry Schein Gets Boost from Pet Health Care - Video

11-08-2012 11:45 Michigan Voter Stephanie Morreale: "Too Much Money Is Being Spent on Health Care and Not in the Right Way" For more on Vote 2012: Do you read or write a language other than English? Help the NewsHour translate the election:

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'Too Much Money Is Being Spent on Health Care and Not in the Right Way' - Video

Even a parade of politicians apparently isnt enough to get construction moving on a major new health care center in Tacomas Hilltop neighborhood.

Its been four months since dignitaries and officeholders including U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks gathered under a rain-soaked tent to break ground for Community Health Cares Hilltop Regional Health Care Center.

But the site for the $26-million, three-story medical building at 1202 Martin Luther King Jr. Way remains a weed-choked lot with neither an excavator nor a bulldozer in sight.

Blame the complications of the exotic financing that Community Health Care is using to get the job done, said Community Health President David Flentge.

We have finished the architect selection and weve named a contractor, but weve still got some work to do on the details of the financing, Flentge said this week.

The health care provider is using a combination of state and federal grants, private and foundation funding and tax credits to raise the funds needed to build the center.

The tax credits are the most complex instruments used to gather the funds. And final issues concerning those credits are still being finished, said Flentge.

Federal law allows health care facilities in certain low-income areas such as Hilltop to sell tax credits, which corporations can use to reduce their income taxes. In return, the health care facilities receive money from those banks or corporations.

Flentge said the health care concerns revised schedule calls for a construction start on Sept. 18 with building completion next summer.

The original schedule had projected completion next spring.

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Hilltop health care center delayed over funds

The health care law's tax hikes are coming: Who pays?

By Connie Cass Saturday, August 11, 2012 12:11 AM EDT

Associated Press

WASHINGTON Who gets thumped by higher taxes in President Barack Obama's health care law? The wealthiest 2 percent of Americans will take the biggest hit, starting next year. And the pain will be shared by some who aren't so well off people swept up in a hodgepodge of smaller tax changes that will help finance health coverage for millions in need.

For the vast majority of people, however, the health care law won't mean sending more money to the IRS.

And roughly 20 million people eventually will benefit from tax credits that start in 2014 to help them pay insurance premiums.

The tax increases plus a mandate that nearly everyone have health coverage are helping make the law an election-year scorcher. Obama is campaigning on the benefits for the uninsured, women and young adults. His rival, Mitt Romney, and Republican lawmakers are vowing to repeal "Obamacare," saying some health care reforms are needed but not at this cost.

Lots of the noise is about the financial consequences for people who decline to get coverage and businesses that don't offer their workers an adequate health plan. Some 4 million individuals without insurance are expected to pay about $55 billion over eight years, according to the Congressional Budget Office's estimates. Employers could be dinged an estimated $106 billion for failing to meet the mandate, which starts in 2014.

But that mandate money, whether it's called taxes or penalties, is overwhelmed by other taxes, fees and shrunken tax breaks in the law. These other levies could top $675 billion over the next 10 years, under the CBO's projections of how much revenue the government would lose if the law were repealed.

The biggest chunk is in new taxes on the nation's top 2 percent of earners some $318 billion over a decade.

Read the original here:

The health care law's tax hikes are coming: Who pays?

On this sunny August afternoon, joggers and cyclists pass by Mark Ganz as he strolls along the Willamette River in downtown Portland, a missionary preaching about health care.

Doctors used to be like his father, a family practitioner. "He spent a lot of time with his patients," Ganz says. But when the retired doctor got sick a decade ago, his own physicians missed symptoms of bone marrow cancer until it was too late. Today's time-pressed health providers don't have the same "human touch," he says.

Ganz, a trim 51-year-old in light chinos, is in a position to change that; he's the CEO over Regence BlueCross BlueShield, one of Oregon's largest health plans. Ganz's reform agenda has transformed the staid nonprofit into an aggressive health services conglomerate whose internal literature states it is "positioning to win."

Changes in federal health laws are barreling down on his industry and the country at large that espouse the same goals Ganz has advocated for years: better care, eliminate waste.

"His philosophy and ideal is that if we want to change the world we have to change ourselves first," says Louis Machuca, a board member for Cambia Health Solutions, the parent company of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon and counterparts in Washington, Utah and Idaho. Ganz heads Cambia as well.

Regence is breaking new ground with award-winning technologies aimed at helping consumers understand the true costs of services, says Ganz. Health care should work more like other industries, he adds, which is why he brought executives from Nordstroms and Starbucks onto his board of directors.

Not everyone appreciates Ganz's efforts. In recent years, the company once considered the conscience of the region's health insurers has steadily lost members, raised rates and become a lightning rod for complaints over slashed benefits.

Some fear the changes Ganz is leading threaten to undermine federal reforms, rather than further them.

Critics "don't understand what we're doing," says Ganz. "I find it interesting that people would be quick to criticize the current health care system, and then when a player like us steps forward and says 'We are willing to change, we are willing to challenge our long-held business model to achieve a greater good,' that we would be criticized.

"In fact, I'm proud of it," he says.

Go here to see the original:

Health plan CEO touts reform, makes waves with Regence BlueCross BlueShield, others

WASHINGTON Who gets thumped by higher taxes in President Barack Obama's health care law? The wealthiest 2 percent of Americans will take the biggest hit, starting next year. And the pain will be shared by some who aren't so well off people swept up in a hodgepodge of smaller tax changes that will help finance health coverage for millions in need.

For the vast majority of people, however, the health care law won't mean sending more money to the Internal Revenue Service.

And roughly 20 million people eventually will benefit from tax credits that start in 2014 to help them pay insurance premiums.

The tax increases plus a mandate that nearly everyone have health coverage are helping make the law an election-year scorcher. Obama is campaigning on the benefits for the uninsured, women and young adults. His rival, Mitt Romney, and Republican lawmakers are vowing to repeal "Obamacare," saying some health care reforms are needed but not at this cost.

Lots of the noise is about the financial consequences for people who decline to get coverage and businesses that don't offer their workers an adequate health plan. Some 4 million individuals without insurance are expected to pay about $55 billion over eight years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's estimates. Employers could be dinged an estimated $106 billion for failing to meet the mandate, which starts in 2014.

But that mandate money, whether it's called taxes or penalties, is overwhelmed by other taxes, fees and shrunken tax breaks in the law. These other levies could top $675 billion over the next 10 years, under the CBO's projections of how much revenue the government would lose if the law were repealed.

The biggest chunk is in new taxes on the nation's top 2 percent of earners some $318 billion over a decade.

Other major taxes are aimed at the health care industry, and some of that cost is sure to be passed along to consumers as higher prices.

A rundown of the most significant tax changes and who pays:

The 2 Percent

Here is the original post:

Health care reform law's tax hikes are coming: Who pays?

09-08-2012 21:12 Cenk talks to former Rep. Alan Grayson (and current candidate in Florida) about the real cost of businesses cutting back -- or cutting loose -- employees' health care plans Tune in Weeknights at 7e/4p on Current TV

Excerpt from:

Fmr. Rep. Grayson on GOP health care policy: 'Only thing Romney cares about is money' - Video

09-08-2012 13:07 Generations Family Health Center ceremony

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Formal opening ceremony for Generations Family Health Care - Video

Story by Corey G. Johnson

Most major California cities are failing to address the growing health care costs of government retirees, which have ballooned to more than $1 billion in some areas and soon could threaten municipalities' ability to pay other expenses, according to a recent financial analysis by a nonprofit research group.

Eleven of 20 California cities with the biggest budgets do not set aside funds for future health care costs, thestudyby California Common Sense found.

Those cities San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Redding, Santa Ana, Long Beach, Glendale, Fresno, Riverside, Pasadena and Santa Monica work under pay-as-you-go systems, meaning they pay benefits from their current operating budgets and do not accumulate funds for future payments.

Combined, all 20 cities have promised $16 billion in future non-pension benefits, and $12 billion of that remains unfunded. The 11 pay-as-you-go cities are losing $2.2 billion in savings by not setting aside money, the analysis found.The $2.2 billion figure is derived from an estimate of each city's potential investment earnings at the 7.61 percent return rate set by the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

San Francisco, which is obligated to pay $4.4 billion for its current and future retired public workers' health care costs, is the state's biggest city that doesn't set aside money to help finance benefit payments.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, puts close to 59 percent of its future costs in a trust to begin drawing interest. Other cities that pay toward future costs include San Jose, San Diego, Anaheim, Roseville, Palo Alto, Bakersfield, Burbank and Santa Clara.

The analysis also concluded that retiree health care costs are consuming more of municipalities' operating budgets and aren't likely to decrease because retirees are living longer and fees for medical services are rising. Since 2008, retireebenefit costs have increased by 36 percent.

Such costs are beginning to have an impact. San Jose, for example, spent close to 8 percent of its operating budget on retiree benefits last year a dramatic 43 percent jump from what it spent three years ago.

The city of Stockton didn't put funds aside, so it didn't earn additional funds to help pay its retiree health benefit debts. Two years ago, Stockton faced a $410 million tab for current and future health care costs for its retired public workers. This came as the city was struggling to pay down a long-term pension debt of $1.3 billion.

Continue reading here:

Report: Major cities not prepared for growing retiree health costs

Written by California Watch

By Corey Johnson, California Watch

SACRAMENTO -- Most major California cities are failing to address the growing health care costs of government retirees, which have ballooned to more than $1 billion in some areas and soon could threaten municipalities' ability to pay other expenses, according to a recent financial analysis by a nonprofit research group.

Eleven of 20 California cities with the biggest budgets do not set aside funds for future health care costs, the study by California Common Sense found.

Those cities - San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Redding, Santa Ana, Long Beach, Glendale, Fresno, Riverside, Pasadena and Santa Monica - work under pay-as-you-go systems, meaning they pay benefits from their current operating budgets and do not accumulate funds for future payments.

Combined, all 20 cities have promised $16 billion in future non-pension benefits, and $12 billion of that remains unfunded. The 11 pay-as-you-go cities are losing $2.2 billion in savings by not setting aside money, the analysis found. The $2.2 billion figure is derived from an estimate of each city's potential investment earnings at the 7.61 percent return rate set by the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

San Francisco, which is obligated to pay $4.4 billion for its current and future retired public workers' health care costs, is the state's biggest city that doesn't set aside money to help finance benefit payments.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, puts close to 59 percent of its future costs in a trust to begin drawing interest. Other cities that pay toward future costs include San Jose, San Diego, Anaheim, Roseville, Palo Alto, Bakersfield, Burbank and Santa Clara.

The analysis also concluded that retiree health care costs are consuming more of municipalities' operating budgets and aren't likely to decrease because retirees are living longer and fees for medical services are rising. Since 2008, retiree benefit costs have increased by 36 percent.

Such costs are beginning to have an impact. San Jose, for example, spent close to 8 percent of its operating budget on retiree benefits last year - a dramatic 43 percent jump from what it spent three years ago.

See original here:

Report: Sacramento not prepared for growing retiree health costs

WASHINGTON Who gets thumped by higher taxes in President Barack Obama's health care law? The wealthiest 2 percent of Americans will take the biggest hit, starting next year. And the pain will be shared by some who aren't so well off people swept up in a hodgepodge of smaller tax changes that will help finance health coverage for millions in need.

For the vast majority of people, however, the health care law won't mean sending more money to the IRS. And roughly 20 million people eventually will benefit from tax credits that start in 2014 to help them pay insurance premiums.

Lots of the noise is about the financial consequences for people who decline to get coverage and businesses that don't offer their workers an adequate health plan. Some 4 million individuals without insurance are expected to pay about $55 billion over eight years, according to the Congressional Budget Office's estimates. Employers could be dinged an estimated $106 billion for failing to meet the mandate, which starts in 2014.

But that mandate money, whether it's called taxes or penalties, is overwhelmed by other taxes, fees and shrunken tax breaks in the law. These other levies could top $675 billion over the next 10 years, under the CBO's projections of how much revenue the government would lose if the law were repealed.

The biggest chunk is in new taxes on the nation's top 2 percent of earners some $318 billion over a decade.

Other major taxes are aimed at the health care industry, and some of that cost is sure to be passed along to consumers as higher prices.

A rundown of the most significant tax changes and who pays:

THE 2 PERCENT

ARTIFICIAL-SUN WORSHIPERS

THE "CADILLACS" OF COVERAGE

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Health care law's tax hikes are coming: Will you have to pay?

NORWICH, Conn. (WTNH) -- Health care workers in Norwich hit the picket line today Friday after contract talks broke down with their company Whole Life, a residential facility for people with special needs.

They provide care and help all day long, but these health care workers don't feel like they're getting much care and help from their employer. They've been negotiating a new contract with Whole Life Inc. for months, then things took a bad turn.

"Recently their employer took the unprecedented and illegal step of simply implementing the contract provisions that she wasn't able to implement otherwise," said Deborah Chernoff of the New England Health Care Employees Union.

In other words, without a new contract, Whole Life cut pay, cut holidays, and told employees they would have to pay more for their own health care,

"It's absolutely ridiculous and it's going to affect my family and all of these people's families," said Whole Life employee Lori Forbes.

"Basically, we're struggling as it is," Sheila Eldridge said. "They take this stuff away from us, we're not gonna make it."

The company these folks work for, Whole Life Inc., provides care and services for people with special needs and developmental disabilities. The state usually provides those, but the state contracts out to Whole Life thinking a private company can do it cheaper.

"They have an obligation since they are taking a lot of public money to make sure we support quality jobs," Chernoff said.

Today's event was not a strike. Workers here came on their own time to try to draw attention to the contract dispute, here at the Norwich facility and at Whole Life branches all over the state.

News 8 has calls into Whole Life for their side of the dispute. We have not heard back.

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Health care workers protest contract

Beginning next month, consumers will receive two new documents designed to make health insurance a lot clearer than ever before. By standardizing what health plans say about their policies and the language they use to say it, health care reform planners hope to usher in substantial improvements in public understanding of health coverage.

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Health Reform Brings Standard Consumer Disclosures

BRENTWOOD, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

During National Health Center Week UnitedHealthcare is recognizing Tennessee Primary Care Association (TPCA) for its commitment to providing access to quality health care for economically and medically disadvantaged people living in Tennessee.

This acknowledgement illustrates UnitedHealthcares support of our mission to improve access to primary health care for people facing medical and economic challenges. It also highlights our joint commitment to help people live healthier lives - no matter their current health situation, said Kathy Wood-Dobbins, CEO for the TPCA, which provides leadership, advocacy and support as the voice for Tennessees community health centers.

The recognition is given to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) that combine superior clinical care and excellent patient support. Health care professionals at these facilities provide Medicaid beneficiaries with access to care that is uniquely designed to address the sometimes complex needs of people living with chronic conditions, and people with high-risk medical, behavioral or social challenges.

United Health Foundation, a private, not-for-profit foundation, provides financial and clinical support to community health centers across the nation as part of its mission to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of medical outcomes, expand access to health care services for people in challenging circumstances and for the well-being of communities. In total, the Foundation has committed more than $34 million to community health centers since 2003.

Tennessee Primary Care Association is being recognized for its commitment to patients during some of the most critical points of care, whether they are living with a chronic condition, a disability or their newborn is in need of intensive care, said Scott Bowers, president of UnitedHealthcare Community Plan in Tennessee. We commend Tennessee Primary Care Association for its continuing excellence in providing the kind of quality care Medicaid beneficiaries deserve.

About UnitedHealthcare UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 650,000 physicians and care professionals and 5,000 hospitals nationwide. UnitedHealthcare serves more than 38 million people and is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.

About United Health Foundation Guided by a passion to help people live healthier lives, United Health Foundation provides helpful information to support decisions that lead to better health outcomes and healthier communities. The Foundation also supports activities that expand access to quality health care services for those in challenging circumstances and partners with others to improve the well-being of communities. After its establishment by UnitedHealth Group [NYSE: UNH] in 1999 as a not-for-profit, private foundation, the Foundation has committed more than $200 million to improve health and health care. For additional information, please visit http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org.

Continued here:

UnitedHealthcare Recognizes Tennessee Primary Care Association for Its Commitment to Providing People in Tennessee ...

09-08-2012 12:50 NewsX@9 is a NewsX special show which debates the main news event of the day. A proposal by the Planning Commission seeking major changes in the government's public health policy from the 12th Plan, by assigning increased role for the private sector and greatly reducing the government's role, has drawn flak from the health ministry as well as experts and non-government organisations working in the health sector. The health ministry has taken a strong stance against what is being referred to as "corporatisation of health care" and will send a strong reply to Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, arguing that "the first priority should be to strengthen the public health system and involve the private sector only for critical gap-filling". So we debate today - Are corporate interests undermining India's public health system? We debate the question on the show and try to evolve consensus among our panelists over the issue. Watch this NewsX special NewsX@9. For more log on to

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NewsX@9: Government's move to privatise health care raises hackles - Video

08-08-2012 22:40 Couples are suing over health care benefits for non-married couples.

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Same-sex pair testifies for health care - Video