The News Review:
- Lawmakers grapple with cuts to child health services
- 250 in Dearborn share ideas at a White House health care forum
- Reforms target youth mental health problems
- Health Highlights: March 12 2009
- Healthcare fix crucial to recovery: Michigan forum
- Women Without Employer Health Plans Pay a Big Price For Pregnancy
Lawmakers grapple with cuts to child health services
Reno Gazette Journal
Jim Gibbons to reduce payments to doctors and hospitals end a program for working pregnant women and cap the number of children eligible to receive benefits. The proposed cuts would save the state about $6 million as lawmakers struggle to fill a $2. 3 billion hole in the 2009-11 budget. The cuts would “move our state back 10 years” said Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley D-Las Vegas said.
250 in Dearborn share ideas at a White House health care forum
Detroit Free Press
They ranged from health care leaders and providers to a feisty organization Raging Grannies of Metro Detroit whose members want a system that covers everyone. “We pay so much and we get so much less” said Nancy Goedert 76 of Ferndale who came wearing a breathing tube just for effect. With more than 1 in 10 without insurance and more employers challenged by paying for health benefits “Michigan is a poster child of why reform needs to happen” said Gov. Jennifer Granholm who co-moderated the forum with Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and Melody Barnes director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Health care improvements will help the economy Granholm said. “We can do this differently folks” she said.
Related from Luckydoglaundromutt: Tough Questions Dog Health-Care verhaul
Reforms target youth mental health problems
WA today
“Some of the problems like bipolar (disorder) and schizophrenia often emerge in late adolescence and if you are able to tackle those things early it can just make a fundamental difference to people in later life. The strategy paper also incorporates a program called Renew under which experts in post-traumatic stress disorder will work with bushfire victims. The Government will appoint a chief child psychiatrist to establish new standards for the treatment of mental illness in children. The strategy will later include: ?A 24-hour mental health advice and referral service similar to Nurse-on-Call to be running by the end of this year.
Health Highlights: March 12 2009
U.S. News & World Report
health spending is too high and delivers too little benefit according to a report released Thursday by a group called the Business Roundtable which represents the CEs of major companies. The United States spent $2. 4 trillion on health care or $1928 per person in 2006. 5 times more per person than any other developed country yet the health of Americans lags behind those nations said the Associated Press.
Healthcare fix crucial to recovery: Michigan forum
Reuters
bama has said such meetings could help Congress craft legislation to overhaul healthcare one of his top priorities but promised to leave the details to lawmakers. Speaking in Dearborn home of Ford Motor Co Granholm said the state’s auto industry is sagging under the weight of health costs that are built into the price of every car it produces. “We know this economic crisis rests on a number of different causes but we also know in order to recover healthcare has got to be a critical part of the solution” said Granholm whose state has an unemployment rate of 11. 6 percent — the highest in the United States. “Cars produced in Canada cost $1000 less than cars produced in the United States simply because of healthcare costs. We’ve got to turn that around” said Melody Barnes director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Women Without Employer Health Plans Pay a Big Price For Pregnancy
FXBusiness
– Babies are usually considered a bundle of joy but if you’re a woman dependent on an individual health insurance plan you may find yourself spending a bundle to maintain maternity coverage. With soaring unemployment rates and more Americans finding themselves losing group health insurance women are often surprised to learn that maternity coverage in individual policies costs more may require a waiting period and in some states may be difficult to find at all. When Fiona Leonard an Atlanta Ga. -based theatrical props designer shopped around for an individual health policy a year ago she found higher premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for maternity services than in her previous employer-provided group plan. Also only a Kaiser Permanente HM family plan did not require a waiting period for that benefit and at age 39 she said she was concerned about postponing pregnancy attempts.
