Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Today's Globe: health plan delay, Menino's health pick, hospital inspections, Medicare and tax scofflaws, hospital buy, universal savings

Leaders of the business community and major health insurers called yesterday for the state to delay for two years, until July 2009, the requirement that all residents have health insurance that meets state standards.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino wasted little time finding a new chief for the city's health department, and he looked no further than the city's school system. Menino will ask the board of the Boston Public Health Commission today to approve his selection of Barbara Ferrer as executive director of the agency. Ferrer is completing her second year as headmaster at Parkway Academy of Technology and Health in West Roxbury.

Barbara Ferrer

Data from hospital inspections such as the one that found problems at Massachusetts General Hospital would benefit patients if the information could be collected in an authoritative format that they could understand, a Globe editorial says.

Doctors and other healthcare providers who owe the federal Treasury a total of more than $1 billion in back taxes are still receiving government checks for treating Medicare patients, congressional auditors say.

Community Health Systems Inc. agreed to pay $5.1 billion for Triad Hospitals Inc., outbidding a private equity group to create the biggest publicly traded US hospital company.

Expanding government health insurance coverage to all Americans could reduce healthcare spending by as much as $60.7 billion a year, according to a study by the New York-based Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan research center.

Posted by Elizabeth Cooney at 06:20 AM

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