’s decision to raise rates for 2009 by an average of 11.5 percent for community-rated plans.
The increase bucks a trend in recent years of 20 percent and higher rate increases that have become the norm.
“Nationally, we’re hearing people say we’re getting closer to single digits and 11.5 percent is going in the right direction,” says John Rodgers, executive vice president and chief marketing officer.
Independent Read the rest of this entry »
Will Obama Listen To Health Insurers, Mandate Coverage?
Boston (SmartAboutHealth) – The health insurance industry has come out and stated that if health insurance was mandated, they would offer coverage to everyone. The big question now is if President-elect Barack Obama would agree to something such as this.
America’s Health Insurance Plans, which consists of all of the big health insurance companies in the U.S., has agreed to offer health Read the rest of this entry »
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
A Florida woman says she will sue Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center because they left part of a knife in her head after she was stabbed more than three years ago, news4jax.com reported Wednesday.
Attorney Chad Roberts said by looking at his client Edith McQueen’s x-ray, you can see the knife in her jaw bone.
“Somehow, some way, the knife was left in her head,” Roberts said of McQueen, who lives Read the rest of this entry »
, Birmingham Mail
WOLVES must wait on the fitness of Chris Iwelumo before naming their side to face Crystal Palace at Molineux tomorrow.
Leading scrorer Iwelumo aggravated a hamstring strain during the pre-match warm-up at Charlton on Saturday, leading to a lead call-in for Andy Keogh.
With Sam Vokes staking a claim with two goals at The Valley, manager Mick McCarthy has options, though, as he prepares his side for a match from which victory Read the rest of this entry »
delivered his monologue.
Another aging jet has been grounded. Brett Favre. Did you hear about this? Brett Favre announced that he is retiring — again! How many times is this? This guy has been retired more times than Cher.
Of course, New York Jets fans are already convinced he retired in the middle of the season.
After his interview on ESPN, A-Rod got over 5,000 text messages of support saying he had done nothing wrong. All were from
Roger Read the rest of this entry »
Tom Daschle is still waiting to be confirmed as secretary of health and human services, not that he’s in any rush. Democrats are already enacting his and Barack Obama’s agenda of government-run health care — entirely on the QT.
This was the real accomplishment of this week’s House vote for the $819 billion “stimulus,” and is the overriding theme of Congress’s first month. With the nation occupied with the financial crisis, and with that crisis Read the rest of this entry »
FRUITA, Colo. — Family Health West in Fruita just announced the addition of Angelina Salazar to its staff. Salazar will assume the position of director of community relations, marketing and development.
Salazar joins Family Health West with an extensive background in education, nonprofit development and public relations.
“We’re excited about having Angie join our team,” said Dennis Ficklin, Family Health West CEO. “Angie is a dedicated Read the rest of this entry »
The uninsured draw most of the attention, but the number of underinsured is growing even faster– an estimated 25 million adults qualify as underinsured, an increase of 60 percent since 2003. With some but not enough health insurance, the underinsured often can’t or won’t pay the high deductibles and co-pays for the services they need. In 2009, we could see more bad debts for hospitals, more cost-shifting to commercial plans and more patients delaying Read the rest of this entry »
Drugs which give terminally ill patients a few extra months to live have a better chance of being approved on the NHS under new rules.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is to extend the threshold at which the drugs are deemed cost-effective.
But this will only be in certain circumstances for instance in people who have less than two years to live.
The rules affect decisions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Read the rest of this entry »
Health boards across Scotland are to be given tougher targets to tackle the Clostridium difficile (C.diff) bug, the health secretary has announced.
Nicola Sturgeon told the SNP conference in Perth that NHS boards must reduce the rate of the infection in hospitals by at least 30% by 2011.
She also said NHS bosses would be told they are to be barred from putting cleaning services out to contract.
Ms Sturgeon said tackling hospital infections was Read the rest of this entry »