Chelsey Ledue
Health insurance reform will bring down costs for small businesses by creating a health insurance exchange, providing a small business tax credit and ending the “hidden tax” on small businesses that provide health insurance, according to a recent report.
Thirty-one states are included in the new 508 compliant National State-by-State Medicaid Statistical Information System eligibility and claims tables for federal fiscal years 2005-2008, now available on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid's Web site.
Philanthropic giving for healthcare in the United States grew a “tepid” 2.9 percent – or about $241 million – to $8.6 billion in 2008, while in Canada similar donations fell by a “dramatic” 12.9 percent to $1.07 billion, according to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.
About 87.4 million people are supported by government-sponsored health insurance, according to the Census Bureau, but a recent report shows that 83 percent of medical offices accept Medicare and only 65 percent accept Medicaid.
Despite the economy and subsequent fall in market prices, the cost of long-term care has gone up, according to the 2009 MetLife Market Survey of Nursing Home, Assisted Living, Adult Day Services and Home Care Costs.
A new report says employer-sponsored insurance has declined every year since 2000, currently leaving 45.7 million people under 65 without coverage – and another 10 million people will lose their coverage unless the economy improves.
Nearly 2 million patients develop healthcare-associated infections, or HAIs, each year, which cause 99,000 deaths and $28 billion to $33 billion in healthcare costs.
A report from the National Committee for Quality Assurance finds that the quality of U.S. healthcare was “virtually stagnant” in 2008, a slowdown after a decade of improvements.
About 70 percent of practicing physicians in Massachusetts support health reform three years after its passage in 2006, according to a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.
Three quarters of health plan attendees at Portico System’s third Annual Integrated Provider Management Symposium said provider reimbursement and network access would be affected by industry reforms.