Healthcare Policy

Virgina's Supreme Court is considering whether doctors are immune from medical malpractice suits that stem from charity care they provided at Virginia's three teaching hospitals. The Court is being asked to rule on two cases--one in which a child was permanently injured and another in which a child died as a result of malpractice. Lawyers for the victims maintain that doctors shouldn't be exempt from malpractice suits. "The public should be offended that well-paid physicians treating …

An advocacy group dedicated to reform in Louisiana has come under fire from the university which manages the state's Charity Hospital System, which charges that the group is arguing for changes its sponsors want rather than serving as an independent voice. Leaders of the Louisiana State University, which runs the state's Charity Hospital System, contend that despite some limits on funding it will accept, the non-profit Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR) is too beholden to …

The Federation of American Hospitals (FAH), a trade group representing investor-owned hospitals, has dipped its oar into the growing universal health debate with a proposal of its own. The FAH plan, dubbed "Health Coverage Passport," calls for a federal law requiring all Americans to have health coverage of some kind. Under the proposed rules, individuals would have to take employer-sponsored coverage where available, buy coverage on their own, or if eligible, take advantage of government …

Disagreements over the future of the Louisiana healthcare system temporarily came to a halt yesterday, when Gov. Kathleen Blanco and U.S. Sen. David Vitter agreed to begin planning for a new teaching hospital in downtown New Orleans. Vitter and Blanco intend to give Louisiana State University an initial $74 million to buy land and hire architects, the first steps in the building process. Gov. Blanco expects to give LSU another $226 million in federal money, once the school has developed a …

Proposals for expanding coverage to the uninsured are taking many directions, all of which generate controversy within some interest group, and this is no exception. In Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle is proposing to fund Medicaid and other health programs for the poor with a tax on hospitals. What makes this tax particularly interesting is that it would create winners and losers, deflating profits for cozy suburban hospitals and helping the Medicaid-reliant hospitals improve their bottom …

Conceding that they just don't have the capacity to deal with the rising flood of poor, mentally-ill patients, North Carolina mental health officials have closed their doors on accepting more than a limited number of patients from community hospitals. North Carolina public health execs say that the volume served by the state psych hospitals has grown rapidly since 2003, with many units serving substantially more people than they're licensed to serve. For example, Dorothea Dix Hospital in …

After a year of back-and-forth, a group of U.S. senators have reached a compromise on a bill offering "mental health parity" to health plan enrollees who have mental health coverage. While the details are still under discussion, generally speaking the bill would require health insurance plans with a mental health option to cover mental diseases the same way they do physical diseases, including reimbursement, co-payments, deductibles and limits on physician visits. The bill is being …

It's beginning to look like HHS Secretary's Michael Leavitt's proposal for reforming healthcare in Louisiana is getting a big "no sale" from the state's leaders. Gov. Kathleen Blanco flatly rejected Leavitt's plan, which would involve using federal funds for the uninsured to provide health insurance for just about half the state's uninsured, calling it "an insult to our intelligence." Blanco says the plan would not pay for what Leavitt claims, as it provides no new funding, leaving a …

Taking on a very tough problem, two federal legislators have re-introduced a bill which would reward doctors who provide ED- or other emergency-related care with 10 percent Medicare pay increases. The bill also establishes a commission which would look at related issues such as overcrowding in the ED, med mal issues in providing ED-based care, and the shrinking availability of specialists willing to take call. Right now, ED physicians end up with $140,000 in uncompensated care annually, …

President Bush continued his battle this week to initiate reform of medical malpractice law, arguing in Chicago that "frivolous lawsuits" are responsible for high healthcare costs. Bush has been a major advocate of tort reform throughout his presidency, but of late, begun to reframe the matter, also suggesting that med mal suits hold back U.S. economic growth. However, despite his advocacy, political observers suggest that this time he's pretty much out of luck. With Democrats in charge …