universal coverage

Two years after the odd couple of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich teamed up to tout electronic health records, more unusual groupings are forming in Washington. The Business Roundtable, representing major corporations, is getting together with organized labor--namely the Service Employees International Union--to launch "Divided We Fail," a campaign to push for broad-based-and unspecified-healthcare reform.

Tomorrow, America's …

The drumbeat is getting louder: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, San Francisco (and possibly California) took action on the issue of covering the uninsured this year, gaining traction for reforms that might have been shot down with little comment a few years ago. Among the highest-profile changes is taking place in Massachusetts, where legislators are looking at a …

Christian Scientists in Massachusetts want state lawmakers to define the difference between "healthcare" and "medical care" in the state's mandatory universal coverage initiative. Christian Scientists believe in faith healing rather than traditional medicine. Under the new law, employers must offer healthcare to all employees or be fined $295 per employee annually. Employees must enroll in the coverage but are exempt if they have "sincerely held religious beliefs" that are at odds with …

A report in Modern Healthcare paints a grim picture of the healthcare system in the Gulf region, post Hurricane Katrina. Since being devastated by the storm last year, $100 billion in government aid has been sent to the affected areas. But little of that money has found its way into the area's ruined health system. "Seven of the 15 hospitals that shut down in the flooding remain closed, and the feds won't pay to rebuild them. Overcrowded clinics in trailers and a converted …

> More than 100,000 uninsured workers will be unable to sign up for new subsidized health plans in Massachusetts by the nominal October 1 deadline, because there hasn't been enough time to get systems in place since the universal coverage law was passed in April. The delay bodes ill for full implementation of the law by July 1, 2007. Story

> California taxpayers …

> Hudson, NY's Columbia Memorial Hospital and unionized employees have reached a tentative contract agreement, possibly settling a dispute that's dragged out since last December. The biggest sticking point in the negotiations was management's request that workers help pay for family health insurance coverage. Under the new agreement, workers will continue to receive fully paid individual health insurance. …

Medical groups in Illinois say they are worried that the state's new universal coverage program for kids will encounter the kind of problems its Medicaid program has run into in recent years. Gov. Rod Blagojovich (D) is selling the All Kids program, which goes into effect July 1, as a way for the state to make sure that kids in families without insurance have access to healthcare services. The Illinois Medical Association says many physicians may not participate in the program. The state …

All in all, it was a big-ish week for healthcare news. On Thursday, after three years of study, a congressional-backed committee led by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) issued a report concluding that a system of universal coverage may be the most effective way of solving the nation's healthcare crisis. It's a little early to suggest that anything will come of the …

The bipartisan Citizen's Health Care Working Group, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) studied the problems facing the US healthcare system for three years. Now, in an interim report, the group is recommending some form of universal coverage as the solution to the country's healthcare woes. That approach is opposed by administration officials. The report sets the stage for a series of congressional hearings later this year.

"It implies massive new funding …

With 32 percent of residents lacking health insurance, Houston's Harris County has the highest uninsurance rate in the nation. That is costing area hospitals about $2 billion a year in uncompensated care. An editorial in the Houston Chronicle lauds an effort by Harris County Public Healthcare System Council to use a Federal grant to offer $150 a month insurance to the working poor. Yet this will get at maximum to only 10 percent of the uninsured. According to the editorial, …