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Montana Gov. seeks cheaper drugs for residents; Legal immigrants may lose health insurace in Mass.

The Associated Press: "Gov. Brian Schweitzer, cooking up a new plan to get cheaper prescription drugs for state residents, said he wants to let every Montanan get discounted medicine through Medicaid." It's his most recent idea about how "to either import cheaper name-brand prescriptions or to otherwise bypass what he sees as exorbitant prices charged by 'drug cartels.'"

27 Aug 2010

Health care costs weigh on employers, jobless alike

News coverage reflects the ways in which employers, employees and unemployed people are confronting health care costs.

27 Aug 2010

Research Roundups: Underinsured children; Hospital progress on electronic records; Federal officlals' work on comparative effectiveness

Underinsurance Among Children In The United States - This study examines the scope of underinsurance, or health insurance that fails to sufficiently meet the needs, of children living in the U.S. Based on information obtained from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, the authors of the study report, "19.3% — or 14.1 million — of all U.S. children (and 22.7% of children with continuous insurance coverage) were underinsured in 2007, exceeding the number of children without any insurance at all during the year (3.4 million) and the number who had insurance during only part of the year (7.6 million)."

27 Aug 2010

HealthSpring announces acquisition of Bravo Health

HealthSpring, Inc. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all of the outstanding capital stock of Bravo Health, Inc., an operator of Medicare Advantage coordinated care plans in Pennsylvania, the Mid-Atlantic region, and Texas, and Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug plans in 43 states.

27 Aug 2010

First Edition: August 27, 2010

In the headlines today, news about U.S. plans to step up efforts to crack down on health care fraud.

27 Aug 2010

Assurant Employee Benefits announces new employee-paid, voluntary benefits

Assurant Employee Benefits now offers cancer, critical illness, accident and gap insurance as employee-paid, voluntary benefits. These products provide competitive benefits backed by Assurant Employee Benefits' commitment to customer service. Initially available in 16 states, these products will be introduced to additional markets throughout the year.

27 Aug 2010

Kaiser Permanente expands health plan availability through healthcompare.com

HealthCompare Insurance Services, Inc., a one-stop online guide to help individuals and families easily research, compare, buy and enroll in the right health insurance plan at the right price, announced today that Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health plans serving more than 8.6 million members, is now available to Californians through www.healthcompare.com.

27 Aug 2010

Study: One in four kids underinsured before recession

Even prior to the onset of the economic recession in 2008, nearly one in four American parents with health insurance reported that their coverage was so inadequate they were unable to access the medical care their children needed.

27 Aug 2010

Scaled back premium increases allowed for Calif. insurer; Calif. lawmakers pass bills setting up exchange; Alaska approves Abortion Notification Initiative

California insurance regulators cleared the way Wednesday for Anthem Blue Cross to implement scaled-back rate hikes after a previous increase was canceled amid an uproar over its size.

27 Aug 2010

Today's Opinions: Sebelius on EMRs, primary care's role in reform and more

Health care providers may agree with the benefits of electronic health records. But they also believed that adopting them was too difficult and expensive. … [T]hat's changing - in large part due to an ambitious investment we made in the Recovery Act to reduce many of the obstacles that limited the spread of electronic health records in the past (HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 8/26).

27 Aug 2010

$1.3 billion in Detroit hospital upgrades could drive up health costs

A new report suggests that $1.3 billion in upgrades to hospitals in Detroit could drive up health care costs. The funding "may give a boost to Metro Detroit's languishing economy, but could also saddle residents with higher medical costs, according to an industry report funded by the United Auto Workers and Detroit's Big Three automakers," The Detroit News reports.

27 Aug 2010

First Edition: August 26, 2010

Highlights from today's headlines include the latest political developments surrounding health reform as well as news about California's health insurance premium rates.

26 Aug 2010

NCPA releases unbiased, detailed analysis of health care reform costs and benefits

The first detailed and objective consumer's guide on the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has just been released by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), titled "What Does Health Care Reform Mean To You? A Detailed Analysis"

26 Aug 2010

N.C. Dept. of Corrections could cut inmate health care costs by requiring hospitals to bill Medicaid; Minn. lawmakers urge governor to seek enhanced Medicaid funds

WRAL: "The [N.C.] state Department of Correction could cut the health costs for inmates by $11.5 million a year by requiring hospitals and other medical service providers to bill Medicaid for eligible expenses, according to a state audit released Tuesday. The amount of potential savings would increase in 2014, when health care reform expands Medicaid eligibility, auditors said.

26 Aug 2010

APWUHP implements ELDORADO's state-of-the-art Javelina solution

Eldorado, a division of MphasiS, an HP Company and a leading provider of health benefit and claims management platforms, today announced that American Postal Workers Union Health Plan, the fourth-largest national health insurance plan in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, serving more than 84,000 postal, retirees and their families, went live with ELDORADO's state-of-the-art JavelinaTM solution.

25 Aug 2010

Employers see greater health care savings through dependent eligibility audits: Ceridian

Ceridian Corporation, a leading provider of managed human resource and employee benefits administration services, announced today that employers are seeing greater health care savings through dependent eligibility audits as the cost of providing medical coverage for their employees and their dependents continues to rise.

25 Aug 2010

Harvard Pilgrim CEO works to contain costs, negotiate with state insurance regulators

The Boston Globe: "When an insurance appeals board issued a surprise ruling on June 24 toppling the Patrick administration's cap on Harvard Pilgrim Health Care's premium rates, there was little time for gloating in the health insurer's executive offices. … A week letter, Harvard Pilgrim struck a deal with regulators voluntarily limiting its 2010 rate increases to single digits.

25 Aug 2010

Intermountain Healthcare chooses Optilink software to enhance nursing productivity management

Intermountain Healthcare, one of the nation's most progressive health systems in leveraging technology to improve care delivery, has chosen OptiLink to enhance nursing productivity management across its health system. OptiLink is a software solution from The Advisory Board Company that captures patient acuity and determines staffing demand.

25 Aug 2010

Two diabetes medications increase risk of heart attack, failure: Study

In contrast to previous reports, the risks of the composite endpoint of heart attack, heart failure, both, or death were the same about 4 percent for patients taking the diabetes drugs rosiglitazone or pioglitazone, according to a study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

25 Aug 2010

Some health overhaul policies good for consumers, bad for brokers

As changes mandated by the health law continue to emerge, news outlets are exploring how the measure will alter the landscape for consumers and for insurance professionals.

25 Aug 2010

Health Insurance News and Research

Montana Gov. seeks cheaper drugs for residents; Legal immigrants may lose health insurace in Mass.

Health care costs weigh on employers, jobless alike

Research Roundups: Underinsured children; Hospital progress on electronic records; Federal officlals' work on comparative effectiveness

HealthSpring announces acquisition of Bravo Health

First Edition: August 27, 2010

Assurant Employee Benefits announces new employee-paid, voluntary benefits

Kaiser Permanente expands health plan availability through healthcompare.com

Study: One in four kids underinsured before recession

Scaled back premium increases allowed for Calif. insurer; Calif. lawmakers pass bills setting up exchange; Alaska approves Abortion Notification Initiative

Today's Opinions: Sebelius on EMRs, primary care's role in reform and more

$1.3 billion in Detroit hospital upgrades could drive up health costs

First Edition: August 26, 2010

NCPA releases unbiased, detailed analysis of health care reform costs and benefits

N.C. Dept. of Corrections could cut inmate health care costs by requiring hospitals to bill Medicaid; Minn. lawmakers urge governor to seek enhanced Medicaid funds

APWUHP implements ELDORADO's state-of-the-art Javelina solution

Employers see greater health care savings through dependent eligibility audits: Ceridian

Harvard Pilgrim CEO works to contain costs, negotiate with state insurance regulators

Intermountain Healthcare chooses Optilink software to enhance nursing productivity management

Two diabetes medications increase risk of heart attack, failure: Study

Some health overhaul policies good for consumers, bad for brokers

Industry Focus eBook - Cell biology (5th edition) eBook

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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