An estimated 1.6 million low-income beneficiaries in the Medicare drug program will either be forced to join or be assigned new drug plans by Jan. 1, or pay more for their drug coverage, according to the consumers group Families USA. Read more »
With health care costs on the rise and almost 45 million Americans lacking insurance, many states have proposed initiatives to increase health care coverage for their residents and lower premiums, according to a report from the National Governors Association. Read more »
As lawmakers aim to overhaul the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a recent analysis found that more than 6.6 million children were covered by the program at some point last year and nearly 9 million children remain uninsured. Read more »
States should be allowed to use the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover young, childless adults if they extend their regular Medicaid programs to cover low-to-moderate-income children, according to Sara Rosenbaum, a health law professor at George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services. Read more »
Physicians in the United States are moving increasingly to midsize, single-specialty practices instead of large, multispecialty practices, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Read more »
The way HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt sees it, a dynamic new figure is needed to lead the next stage of the nation's adoption of health information technology--and it ain't him. Government must play a major role in lowering barriers to the spread of the technology, but putting a government leader in charge of that effort will muck things up, Leavitt said. Read more »