This flu season looks to provide us an inkling of the real dangers inherent in large-scale health care reform, most especially
a full-blown national health care option.
The health insurance industry’s sudden counterpunch to the Senate version of health reform echoed in Indiana and
opened a key issue for the rest of the debate: Will covering half of the country’s uninsured mean raising premiums for
the 85 percent of Americans who already have insurance?
Indiana is ending its troubled $1.34 billion deal with a team of vendors to automate the application process for food stamps,
Medicaid and other benefits.
As health care legislation
continues to wend its way through Congress, Indianapolis-area industry leaders still harbor strong
opinions about the issue. Five industry insiders discussed how to improve the health care system during
IBJ’s Power Breakfast Sept. 25 at the Westin Indianapolis.
An ordinance that would prohibit lighting up in bars, bowling alleys and nightclubs, and nearby outdoor seating areas as well, was endorsed 4-2 by a City-County Council committee Wednesday night.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has given Purdue University a nearly $1 million grant to study ways that genomics can be
used to enhance the value of certain plants while making them more resilient to climate stress.
A peer-review panel of experts would help minimize unnecessary medical malpractice suits.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana has cut 25 jobs and will close six health centers around the state as part of a restructuring
it attributed to a decline in federal funding.
Idaho is getting $13 million as part of a settlement reached with Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. over its marketing of
anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa.
Nearly 700 workers will be offered severance, new jobs
Presenting five video excerpts from a free-wheeling panel discussion about health-care reform featuring five of the city’s
top minds and decision-makers. Reporter J.K. Wall moderates the IBJ’s Power Breakfast on Sept. 25, covering tort reform,illegal
immigrants, pay models and the role of insurance companies.
UnitedHealthcare has become the second health insurer to join Quality Health First, a pay-for-performance program operated
by the Indiana Health Information Exchange, the exchange announced Tuesday.
The insurance industry sharply escalated its criticism of the Senate health care bill Sunday, charging that the legislation
would shift costs to privately insured people, raising the price of a typical policy by hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars
annually.
Shares of WellPoint Inc. partially recovered Friday morning after a plunge was touched off Thursday by gathering momentum behind health care reform and talk of a windfall-profit tax by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
With a national unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent eroding its customer base, WellPoint Inc. is cutting at least 30
middle-management employees and reshuffling its corporate organization, according to internal memos obtained by IBJ.
The health reform bill sponsored by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., would help pay for expanded health insurance coverage
by levying fees of $13 billion a year on the health care industry. The fees would deliver a hefty bill to just
about all of Indiana’s major health care companies. But how they’re reacting to the fees is all over the map.
The business park would encompass about 900 acres on the town’s northeast side and require rezoning
of much of the land, from residential and agriculture to commercial.
The company, which guides working adults and their parents through the maze of decisions and agencies involved in care for seniors, plans to use the money primarily to augment its sales staff and operations.
Demonstrators on Wednesday backed Maine’s insurance superintendent for rejecting a request from the state’s largest private health insurer seeking an 18-percent rate hike for its individual insurance plans.
The new president of Community Hospital East says her job is all about health—the health of not just patients, but
the entire neighborhood.
