Industry News

The American Medical Association and state medical societies are supporting a proposal by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on what expenditures insurers can consider medical spending under the new health law...

Kennebec (Maine) Journal: "A growing number of uninsured Mainers with mental illness are falling through the cracks of the health care system because of state budget cuts and financial strains on nonprofits, according to state officials and private agencies...

As Reform Improves The Overall Market, Inefficient Insurers Could Take Hits Kaiser Health News We want to spend just a little less, so that we have more money for other purposes. And we want to spend just a little differently, so that we're getting a higher quality, more humane health care system (Jonathan Cohn, 8/30)...

The Wall Street Journal: "Faced with mounting debt and looming costs from the new federal health-care law, many local governments are leaving the hospital business, shedding public facilities that can be the caregiver of last resort. ...

One in six Americans is now taking advantage of government anti-poverty programs, including more than 50 million on Medicaid, for which enrollment is up 17 percent since the recession began in December 2007, USA Today reports. "The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. ...

Word of new tax credits for some small businesses continued to make the rounds in news reports this weekend, as business owners seek to make sense of it details. The (Vancouver, Wash.) Columbian: "Clark County small businesses could get back up to 35 percent of the money they pay into health insurance premiums this year...

Truth Catches Up To Democrats On Health Care CNN Americans told lawmakers in Washington that they wanted reforms that would lower costs; Democrats in Congress increased them. They said they wanted Medicare protected; Democrat leaders used it as a piggy bank, cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to help pay for this massive new government expansion of health care (Sen...

Americans are united when it comes to many core values, according to a University of Michigan survey. But the nation is deeply divided about certain issues, including gay marriage, immigration, and universal healthcare...

More than 50% of infants in poverty are raised by mothers with mild to severe depression, which could contribute to problems in parenting and child development, according to a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute, the Washington Post reports...

News coverage reflects the ways in which employers, employees and unemployed people are confronting health care costs. Employees are resisting state and local government efforts to shift more health costs to workers, The Wall Street Journal reports...

AARP Bulletin: "Two years after undergoing a double mastectomy and chemotherapy so severe she was hospitalized in intensive care for several weeks, breast cancer survivor Denise Hicks should be following what her doctors call 'the plan,'" which includes additional medications and treatments. But she can't. "Hicks has health insurance but already reached her coverage limits...

Bloomberg Businessweek: "Investors traditionally have viewed shares of health-care companies as havens from economic concerns. Now, many parts of the sector have drawn concern from investors amid worries the U.S. economy will slow in the second half of the year. ... So far this year, U.S. patient visits to doctors' offices fell 7...

After being labeled as "villains" and enemies of reform by Democrats, health insurers are shifting their cash to the coffers of Republican candidates, giving GOP campaigns eight times as much money, Bloomberg reports. "WellPoint, along with Coventry Health Care Inc. and Humana Inc., gave Republican candidates $315,000 from May through July, according to U.S. Federal Election Commission records...

New England Journal of Medicine: Underinsurance Among Children In The United States - This study examines the scope of underinsurance, or health insurance that fails to sufficiently meet the needs, of children living in the U.S. Based on information obtained from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, the authors of the study report, "19.3% - or 14.1 million - of all U.S...

The Associated Press: "Gov. Brian Schweitzer, cooking up a new plan to get cheaper prescription drugs for state residents, said he wants to let every Montanan get discounted medicine through Medicaid." It's his most recent idea about how "to either import cheaper name-brand prescriptions or to otherwise bypass what he sees as exorbitant prices charged by 'drug cartels...

HealthLeaders-InterStudy, a leading provider of managed care market intelligence, reports that provider groups in California, including physician groups, independent practice associations, hospitals and medical foundations, are beginning to shape their role in the anticipated shift towards accountable care organizations (ACO)...

Cost but not convenience plays a significant role in attitudes about vaccination for common human papillomaviruses for women over the age of 26, according to the authors of a recent article in the journal Sexual Health. Currently, the two vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV), which is the primary cause of cervical cancer, are U.S...

"Even prior to the onset of the economic recession in 2008, nearly one in four American parents with health insurance reported that their coverage was so inadequate they were unable to access the medical care their children needed," HealthDay/Bloomberg Businessweek reports...

A new report suggests that $1.3 billion in upgrades to hospitals in Detroit could drive up health care costs. The funding "may give a boost to Metro Detroit's languishing economy, but could also saddle residents with higher medical costs, according to an industry report funded by the United Auto Workers and Detroit's Big Three automakers," The Detroit News reports...

The Los Angeles Times: "California insurance regulators cleared the way Wednesday for Anthem Blue Cross to implement scaled-back rate hikes after a previous increase was canceled amid an uproar over its size. Anthem said it intends to put the new rates - averaging 14% and as high as 20% - into effect Oct. 1 for nearly 800,000 individual California policyholders...