Healthcare Policy news from FierceHealthcare

While the state of Louisiana would like to put a 484-bed teaching and research hospital in downtown New Orleans, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development isn't sure it's a good idea. HUD has agreed to release $74 million to buy land and prepare a design for the next Charity Hospital, which sat in downtown New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. But HUD isn't thrilled about the idea of giving the state an additional $150 million or so to build the hospital. In a …

While the federal government has greatly expanded funding for community health centers, it seems that its medical staff hasn't kept pace. Like their private sector counterparts, many of the country's clinics are now struggling to find the primary care physicians they need to function, despite paying reasonable salaries. Meanwhile, doctors who are on board are facing swelling caseloads, which could lead to turnover and make things worse. Health centers are coping, in part, by taking …

In a debate that resonates across the U.S., leaders in Tarrant County, TX are discovering what the real cost would be if they permit illegal immigrants access to the county's indigent care program. This week, a consultant hired by the JPS Health Network board of managers told executives and officials that the cost would be $41.2 million a year, or about 10 percent of the hospital's current operating budget. For that amount, the hospital could see 29,000 new patients and would probably end …

Pharma lobbyists are facing new challenges this month as the House of Representatives takes on a new FDA overhaul bill which could limit consumer drug advertising. Critics have suggested that such advertising can boost spending unnecessarily, but observers--including some not on the pharmas' payroll--suggest that the ads help educate consumers about new treatment options.

The Senate version of the bill had imposed a ban on consumer drug advertising during the first two years a drug …

New Orleans physicians have been struggling since Hurricane Katrina, with practices and hospitals closed and the list of uninsured patients remaining high. Under these conditions, it's hardly surprising that they would want to leave the city. But the city doesn't want to see them go. So with the help of the state of Louisiana and the federal government, the city has developed a program which pays them to stay. The Greater New Orleans Health Services Corps has begun offering incentives of …

Nearly all of Wisconsin's hospitals--a full 95 percent--are not-for-profits that enjoy a state property tax exemption. Despite resistance from the hospitals, the state is continuing to look at recouping some of that revenue with a separate hospital-specific tax. State governor Jim Doyle (D) wants to impose an 0.8 percent tax on the state's 109 non-profit hospitals, which he says will generate $418 million in revenues for the state over the next two years. The proposal has been posted by a …

The city of New Orleans' top medical official is angrily contesting new state data which conflicts with his findings that death rates have risen substantially since Hurricane Katrina. Officials with Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals yesterday released numbers which contradict an analysis by Dr. Kevin Stephens that mortality rates have spiked 47 percent since the disastrous storm. State officials concede that the city is still struggling, but said that Stephens' numbers are …

The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee is holding a hearing next week on the need to study variations in care practices. The stated purpose of the hearing is to consider funding new research on the comparative effectiveness of various treatments and procedures paid for under Medicare. However, such research would doubtless be used aggressively by private health plans, which are equally interested in seeing that their reimbursement policies make sense. Rep. Pete Stark (D), who chairs …

Hoping to keep newly-minted physicians in the state, a Pennsylvania state legislator has introduced a bill under which the state would pay off med school loans for physicians who stay there for 10 years or more. Right now, only about 8 percent of physicians who train at the state's medical schools end up practicing there. Meanwhile, the state's physician population is aging, with only 3 percent of its physicians under age 35. To slow this exodus, the state would pay the loans off at a …

As federal legislators debate bills that would create parity between mental health insurance benefits and traditional medical benefits, few have asked the question as to whether this approach has really expanded access in the past. However, if Connecticut's experience is any guide, parity of benefits may not close the mental health treatment gap completely. Connecticut, which has had a mental health parity law on the books since 2000, requires the state's insurers to pay for treatment of …