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Medicaid Budget Woes Get Worse
State officials have been singing the blues about Medicaid budgets since the start of the year. The Sept. 11 attacks have only worsened a bad situation, says a new 20-state survey from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, a nonprofit health policy group backed by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Even before […]
States Move to Cover Cancer Treatment For Poor Women
Even though states are struggling to make financial ends meet, an overwhelming majority of them have added a new program that will provide breast and cervical cancer treatment for poor women. The new programs stem from a nearly year-old federal law dubbed the Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act of 2000. The measure […]
States Continue to Endorse Patients’ Rights
North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley signed a patient’s bill of rights bill into law today (10/18), making his state the 46th to give more legal power to health care consumers. State officials say the new measure is the toughest in the country. Even so, without congressional action on the issue, up to one-third of Americans […]
State Lawmakers to Discuss Rx Issues
Lawmakers and state officials from Oregon to Maine will converge on Vermont today (10/19) to advance plans for multi-state buying pools aimed at cutting the cost of prescription drug prices The Northeast Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Priceswhich includes six New England states plus New York and Pennsylvaniawill discuss what officials are calling a “Northeast […]
Federal Officials Call For Rx Pricing Reforms
After years of investigations that show physicians can buy pharmaceuticals at a tenth of what the government pays, Congress is considering cutting reimbursement rates for some prescription drugs under Medicare and Medicaid. Interest in reforming the payment system has accelerated following the recent release of two federal agency reports. Projections show that the federal government […]
Washington’s Eileen Cody Mixes Nursing, Politics
The title “union leader” evokes an image of a big, beefy man building cars in Detroit or driving a truck across the country. Eileen Cody, a member of the Washington state House of Representatives, doesn’t fit that stereotype. A tall, scholarly-looking woman with short brown hair, Cody, a Democrat, is co-founder of a health care […]
Nine Million Kids Still Uninsured
Illinois resident Kendall Watters was eight years old when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His family didn’t have insurance, so his mother Nora did what any Mom would do. She desperately tried to find someone, anyone who could help her son. “When I found out he had a brain tumor, I called information […]
States Take Closer Look At Drug Discount Brokers
President Bush’s new drug discount plan for older Americans would be administered by profit-making companies known as Pharmacy Benefits Managers, or PBMs. But many states have reservations about how much of a price break these firms really provide their customers, and are striking out on their own to negotiate lower drug prices. Moreover, practices of […]
Health Care Data Website Unveiled
Did you know Arizona, New Mexico and Texas have the largest percentages of people without health insurance or that Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York spend the most Medicaid money per person of all the states? If you didn’t know those bits of trivia, the Kaiser Family Foundation can help you track that information and […]
Texas, Others Tackle Managed Care Complaints Via Appeals, Not Lawsuits
President George W. Bush and members of Congress have been trading barbs on the right-to-sue provision in a federal patient’s bill of rights. Will patients truly flood the courts if such a bill is enacted? State officials from California, Maryland and Texas say the answer is no. In 1997 Texas became the first state in […]
State Health Programs Largely Spared In Budget-Cutting
State budgets are tight this year, but most health programs have escaped cutbacks. Arizona has agreed to hefty increases for the mentally ill, Oregon is considering a new voluntary screening program for newborns and Maine just okayed a small cigarette tax increase to expand health insurance for adults without kids. Healthcare programs are getting priority […]
Seniors’ Drug Costs Sky-Rocketing, Advocacy Group Says
Eighty-six year old Montana resident Joan Stroup spends a lot of money on prescription drugs each month. A retired teacher and administrator, Stroup suffers from macular degeneration, eczema and psoriasis, allergies, asthma, hypertension and migraine headaches. Her total monthly bill is more than $1,300 a month for medications– and that’s when she buys at the […]