Medicare officials trumpeted year-two results from a pilot program testing bonus payments for higher quality hospital care as evidence that the Medicare payment system should be changed. The results from the demo sponsored by Premier Inc., showed continuing improvements in quality of care in a program in which hospitals were paid more if they performed well on 30 measures assessing treatment for heart attacks, heart failure, bypass surgery, pneumonia, and hip and knee replacements. Read more »
Groups representing hospitals, consumers, labor, and health care providers said that President Bush's proposals to expand health care coverage would do little to help the nation's 47 million uninsured Americans afford insurance. Read more »
Decrying a Washington scene he said cynically responds to bold proposals as a form of sport, presidential contender Barack Obama predicted a breakthrough in American politics that will lead to U.S. adoption no later than 2012 of a plan for universal health coverage. Read more »
The nation could save money and improve the quality of care by overhauling the way it pays primary care physicians, the professional association representing those doctors said. A payment overhaul would boost preventive care in the U.S. and reduce the number of costly hospitalizations, according to the American College of Physicians. Read more »
From presidential campaigns to business and consumer groups, more players in the health care scene are looking for ways to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover more children. Read more »
Democrat Pete Stark of California told an Urban Institute confab that there's little alternative this year to cutting payments to private plans in the Medicare Advantage program. But other gray-haired Medicare policy pros at the event suggested it ain't likely to happen, at least not to the point where payment rates in traditional Medicare and private plan Medicare are the same. Read more »