Insurers to lose $1 trillion if health law struck down

Nearly one-tenth of the insurance industry’s total revenue through 2020 is at stake in the Supreme Court’s decision on healthcare reform, a new study by Bloomberg Government says. That figure equals about $ 1 trillion, or about one-half percent of the projected U.S. gross domestic product over eight years, the report said. The $ 1 trillion in new revenue would come from the law’s expansion of Medicaid and from subsidies to individuals purchasing insurance. Though most of the money would eventually flow to healthcare providers, insurers would keep an average of $ 22 billion per year for profit and administrative costs, the study said.

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D.C. Archdiocese, Georgetown spar over Sebelius speech

Tensions between the Archdiocese of Washington and Georgetown University are escalating ahead of an address on Friday (May 18) by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius, a Catholic whose support for abortion rights and President Obama’s contraception insurance mandate has infuriated bishops and conservative Catholics, was chosen last fall by students at Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute to deliver a speech at the school’s annual awards ceremony on commencement weekend. The Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative watchdog group, called the Sebelius invitation "outrageous," and on Wednesday (May 16) sent an online petition with 26,000 signatures to Georgetown President John DeGioia, warning him that he had "two more days to stop this scandal and insult."

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Banner Health, Aetna reach for ACO gold

Aetna recently announced an agreement with Banner Health Network (BHN) to provide technology that will support a health information exchange, improve patient data analytics, and add mobile connectivity. The May 10 announcement comes as the Banner Health Network transitions into an accountable care organization (ACO) through the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization initiative. To advance its ACO goals, Banner will adopt technology and services from Medicity, ActiveHealth, and iTriage—all Aetna subsidiaries. The technology will support services offered to the 50,000 Medicare fee-for-service patients covered under the Pioneer ACO shared savings program as well as to the members in Aetna’s ACO relationship with Banner Health Network.

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Accretive taps politicians for defense

So what do you do when you’re accused of hitting up sick patients in the hospital to pay their bills—sometimes even before they get treatment? Well, if you’re Chicago-based Accretive Health, under fire by not only the Minnesota Attorney General but key members of Congress and possibly the Obama Administration, you fight fire with fire. You line up your own set of political defenders. So now Accretive is upping the ante. It has enlisted a veritable who’s who in health policy to come up with "national standards for how hospitals and other providers interact with patients regarding their financial obligations." In other words, how aggressive can debt collectors be without running afoul of federal law, various or regulation or good public relations.

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‘Uninsurable’ patients could lose coverage if the healthcare law is overturned

Under President Obama’s healthcare law, cancer patient Kathy Watson and nearly 62,000 other "uninsurable" patients are getting coverage through a little-known program for people who have been turned away by insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, known as PCIP. Watson’s case illustrates the potential impact of tying everything in the far-reaching legislation to the fate of one provision, the unprecedented requirement that most Americans carry health insurance. State officials who administer the federal pre-existing condition plan in 27 states are trying to make fallback arrangements in case the law is invalidated and coverage suddenly terminates.

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Cataloging wounds of war to help heal them

Each wounded or killed soldier was listed in a small but meticulous computer entry by Colonel Wirt, a doctor intent on documenting how soldiers were wounded or sickened, how they were treated and how they fared. For those seeking to understand war and how best to survive it, the doctor on his own initiative created an evidence-based tool and a possible model. But there are concerns that the potential lessons from such data could be lost, because no one has yet brought the information together and made it fully cohere. The amassed information on combatants over 10 years amounts to the most detailed data ever assembled on battlefield trauma and its care, American military officers say.

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Medical Boards Step Up Disciplinary Actions

The Federation of State Medical Boards reports that the number of doctors punished by their states increased 6.8% between 2010 and 2011. But a citizen’s advocacy group issues its own report, which suggests that states continue to fail to adequately protect the public from bad doctors.

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Parkland Hospital Improving, but ED Deficiencies Persist

The Dallas safety net hospital is making "measureable progress" in implementing a corrective action plan to remedy deficiencies identified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a report shows. But some emergency department tasks are behind schedule.

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