WASHINGTON – Activists on both sides of the abortion question will congregate Thursday at the annual March for Life protest
in Washington to debate the possible passage of the Freedom of Choice Act.
President Obama, speaking to Planned Parenthood
while a candidate, said he would sign the legislation should it pass Congress, and his vow has energized all sides of the
issue this year.
The FOCA as introduced to Congress in 2007, Read the rest of this entry »

January 04, 2009 10:58 pm
CUMBERLAND — A local gym owner’s request for a federal bill to be considered in the Maryland General Assembly “makes sense” to Sen. George Edwards.
Amy Schwab Owens is co-owner of Life Fitness Management in LaVale. She said state lawmakers’ support of a modified Personal Health Investment Today Act, which would allow state residents to use flex-spending and health savings accounts to purchase Read the rest of this entry »

series, “In Their Debt,” found that hospital debt collection lawsuits spiked sharply between 2003 and 2006 before falling slightly in 2007. In all, hospitals filed more than 132,000 of these suits over five years and won at least $100 million in judgments.
The Maryland Hospital Association says it supports most of the proposals outlined in the report to the governor.
Banning prejudgment interest and penalties “strengthens the process,” said hospital Read the rest of this entry »

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation to increase consumer protections by further limiting the unfair practice of “balance billing,” an anti-consumer tactic that puts patients in the middle of payment disputes between health plans and health care providers. He has also signed legislation to prevent certain health insurance rescissions and to redirect funds collected from HMO fines to aid those having difficulty paying health care bills Read the rest of this entry »

Texans with mental health conditions will get insurance coverage in parity with people with other health conditions, thanks to a provision in the $700 billion financial bailout legislation passed and signed into law on Friday.
The federal provision, years in the making, will prohibit insurers from charging higher co-pays or deductibles for mental health treatments or limiting patient visits to mental health practitioners any more than their caps Read the rest of this entry »

For more than a dozen years, advocates have fought to lift restrictions on mental health coverage in insurance policies.
On Friday, they won an enormous victory when Congress passed the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity & Addiction Equity Act of 2008.
The law doesn’t require health insurers to cover mental health care. But if they do, they’ll have to treat psychological and addictive disorders just as they do other medical Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers inched closer Thursday to giving President Barack Obama an early health care victory as they considered extending government-sponsored health insurance coverage to about 4 million uninsured children.
The Senate was expected to pass the legislation late Thursday after Democrats spent much of the day fending off Republican amendments. The House plans to take up the same measure next week.
The bill calls Read the rest of this entry »

series, “In Their Debt,” found that hospital debt collection lawsuits spiked sharply between 2003 and 2006 before falling slightly in 2007. In all, hospitals filed more than 132,000 of these suits over five years and won at least $100 million in judgments.
The Maryland Hospital Association says it supports most of the proposals outlined in the report to the governor.
Banning prejudgment interest and penalties “strengthens the process,” said hospital Read the rest of this entry »

DeLauro, D-3rd District, has argued for a single entity to take over all governmental duties for food safety, which are spread across many government agencies, including
Department of Agriculture. But this bill, which DeLauro said has about 30 co-sponsors, tackles only the FDA’s responsibilities, which include as much as 80 percent of the food supply.
A new focus would be prevention, especially of food-borne disease. It would require food producers Read the rest of this entry »

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation to increase consumer protections by further limiting the unfair practice of “balance billing,” an anti-consumer tactic that puts patients in the middle of payment disputes between health plans and health care providers. He has also signed legislation to prevent certain health insurance rescissions and to redirect funds collected from HMO fines to aid those having difficulty paying health care bills Read the rest of this entry »