healthcare coverage news from FierceHealthcare

While some federal legislators are pointing to healthcare co-ops as a means of expanding healthcare coverage to more Americans, the experience of Seattle's Group Health Cooperative suggests that this... Read more...

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) don't agree on a lot--Wyden's a liberal Dem and Cooper a conservative Southerner--but they've come together to champion a cause that hasn't gotten... Read more...

Classical economics suggests that healthcare enjoys a unique status as an industry--that it's essentially recession-proof given the constant and sometimes rising demand for healthcare services. But... Read more...

At some point during the year, approximately 3 million U.S. children and adolescents will have a gap in healthcare coverage, even though at least one of their parents is insured. A new study by the... Read more...

While most of the discussion of universal healthcare coverage takes place outside of the corporate arena, some activist shareholders may have succeeded in forcing the discussion into stockholder... Read more...

When it comes to universal healthcare coverage, it would appear that a significant minority of physicians find the idea to be intolerable, according to a new survey. The survey, by physician... Read more...

Pennsylvania's hospitals said yesterday that they won't charge for care related to serious medical mistakes that occur during an inpatient stay at an acute care hospital, such as wrong-body-part... Read more...

It's all well and good to advocate for universal healthcare coverage, but unless we trim costs universal coverage is not sustainable, suggests New York Times columnist David Leonhardt. If they really want to fix the U.S. health system, presidential candidates should encourage the industry to focus on which treatments really work, he says. Article

> See Leavitt run! The HHS head plans to spend 100 days zipping form state to state to help them develop proposals for expanded healthcare coverage. Article

> An 18-year-old Massachusetts woman who took ulcer drug misoprostol late in her pregnancy, then miscarried, now faces felony charges. …

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President Bush joined the national debate on universal healthcare last night with two proposals outlined in his State of the Union speech. In a previous radio address, Bush had revealed his plan to control healthcare costs by tax breaks to help low-income people buy insurance and a tax boost for employees whose health coverage costs more than average. Last night he also announced a policy to support the universal health efforts of several states. The so-called "Affordable Choices …

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