Latest California Healthline Stories
Los Angeles City Council Calls for Delay in King/Drew Trauma Center Vote
The Los Angeles City Council on Friday unanimously approved a resolution calling for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to delay a vote on closing the trauma unit at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Congress Might Consider Reduced Medicare Payments to Providers To Help Decrease Budget Deficit
Congress in February might begin to discuss proposals to decrease Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and other health care providers as part of an effort to reduce the federal budget deficit, CQ Weekly reports.
Kaiser Permanente To Begin To Offer Health Savings Accounts in Some States
California-based HMO Kaiser Permanente this week unveiled a plan to offer health savings accounts to individuals and employers in Colorado, Georgia and some Northwestern states that purchase high-deductible health plans, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Some Proposition 71 Funding Will Finance Construction of New Facilities
As much as $300 million in funding from Proposition 71, a measure approved on the Nov. 2 statewide ballot that will fund stem cell research, will finance building, leasing and creating new laboratory space because NIH regulations require “strict separation between federally funded facilities and equipment and the studies of embryonic stem cells” that do not qualify for federal funding, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Health Net Announces Expansion of Cross-Border HMO
Health Net on Friday announced plans to expand Salud con Health Net — an HMO that allows members to receive treatment from a network of providers in California and Mexico — to Orange County, the Orange County Register reports.
Stanford University Medical Center officials on Thursday announced that the facility will hire additional staff members, add additional beds to their emergency department and reconfigure boundaries for its ambulance service area following the closure in December of HCA Healthcare’s San Jose Medical Center, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Philip Morris Presents Arguments in Appeal of Illinois Verdict
Attorneys for Philip Morris USA on Wednesday told the Illinois Supreme Court that the company did not mislead consumers about the risks of “light” cigarettes in an appeal of a $10.1 billion consumer fraud verdict, the AP/Lexington Herald-Leader reports.
Georgia Insurance Commissioner Negotiates for State Financing in Anthem-WellPoint Merger
To help push along the proposed merger of insurers Anthem and WellPoint Health Networks, Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine (R) and CEO Larry Glasscock on Tuesday discussed a “financial proposal to make health care improvements in the state,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
Wall Street Journal Examines Cost-Cutting Measures at Cigna
The Wall Street Journal on Friday examined the problems Cigna faced this year when it made an insulin pump by “little-known supplier” Louisiana-based Dana Diabecare USA its “preferred pump” as part of an ongoing cost-cutting plan designed to help the company recover from “two years of upheaval.”
Editorial, Opinion Piece Address Delay of Implementation of Nurse-To-Patient Ratio Rules
Two newspapers on Thursday published an editorial and an opinion piece addressing the decision to delay implementation of some state nurse-to-patient ratio rules.