hospital industry

In a speech in upstate New York, President Bush acknowledged that the new Medicare prescription drug benefit has had a rocky start. Bush defended the program as a good deal for seniors in a half hour forum, saying "Any time Washington passes a new law, sometimes the transition period can be interesting." Analysts expect Democrats to try to use the benefit's problems as political leverage in November.

The New York Times compared the speech to earlier talks in which the …

At a talk in Ohio, President Bush discussed his plans to reform the healthcare system around expanded use of health savings accounts (HSAs) and other measures. Bush said he hopes Americans will experiment with using a system built around the combination of HSAs to pay for routine healthcare expenses and catastrophic coverage to cover serious illnesses. The hour-long speech provided perhaps the most detailed view yet of the administration's plans to reform the healthcare …

A New York state commission will release data on its hospitals as part of an inquiry into the state's hospital industry. The ratings process is being closely watched by hospital executives across the industry who fear low scores could hurt business. Article | Web site

A plan to trim Medicaid and Medicare spending proposed by the Senate Finance Committee last week could help hospital companies significantly, some are arguing. The proposal, crafted by Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA), would give hospitals some relief from specialty competition and also defer the planned 4.3 percent cut in physician Medicare reimbursement rates planned for 2006. The plan asks for $5.8 billion in cuts to Medicare and a $4.3 billion decrease in …

The federal moratorium on the construction of new physician-operated specialty hospitals expires today. An extension authorized by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid chief Mark McClellan today keeps the ban in place for another six months. Congress enacted the moratorium in 2002 in response to claims from the hospital industry that the specialty facilities represent unfair competition.

The American Medical Association issued a statement in support of specialty hospitals this …