The Wall Street Journal: Medicare Records Case Moves Forward In CourtA federal judge in Florida has ruled that a case aimed at overturning a 32-year-old injunction that bars the public from seeing the Medicare billing records of individual doctors can proceed. The case was brought in January by Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, on the grounds that releasing the records would enable state medical boards, nonprofit organizations, universities and newspapers to act as watchdogs over the $500 billion Medicare program (Carreyrou, 9/27).
NPR: Boomers 'Delusion' About Health In RetirementMost baby boomers say they're planning on an active and healthy retirement, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. And, in a switch from earlier years, more than two-thirds recognize the threat of long-term care expenses to their financial futures (Rovner, 9/28).
The Washington Post: The Federal Diary: Health Insurance Costs Rise At Lower Rate, But They Still RiseThe good news and the bad news is that health insurance premiums for non-postal federal employees and all retirees will increase an average of 3.8 percent in 2012. The increase certainly is much lower than the 7.3 percent jump for this year. But when your pay is frozen, as federal pay is through this year and next, the premium boost amounts to another hole in your wallet (Davidson, 9/27).
Los Angeles Times: Legal Opinion Could Spell Trouble For Plan To Roll Back L.A. Pension CostsBut in a reminder of the risks faced by local agencies when they tinker with public pension benefits, a law firm retained by the city's Fire and Police Pensions board concluded this month that those benefits were already guaranteed -; and that the city is legally obligated to cover the cost of rising healthcare premiums for its retirees (Zahniser, 9/28).
Los Angeles Times: Pending Bill Would Tighten Scrutiny Of Outpatient Surgery CentersOutpatient surgery centers, including those that perform weight-loss procedures after which five Southern California patients have died, could face additional scrutiny under a bill pending before Gov. Jerry Brown. Both houses of the state Legislature have approved a bill that would reshape laws governing clinics such as Valley Surgical Center, where Paula Rojeski underwent Lap-Band surgery before her Sept. 8 death (Pfeifer, 9/28).
Los Angeles Times: Eleventh-Hour Lawmaking With Morning-After QuestionsA few hours earlier, using an obscure parliamentary procedure, the senator had carved the contents out of a bill about local gas taxes and "amended" it into a proposal to warn women about breast cancer risks. It was now speeding through the statehouse so fast, and with so little scrutiny, that Simitian would later be on the defensive about one significant effect: a possible multimillion-dollar windfall for a medical business in his district (York, 9/28).
The Washington Post: D.C. Has Fewer Than 3,000 Active Doctors, Report SaysA new report on the number of physicians practicing in the District appears to confirm what many patients already experience: It's not easy to find a doctor in Washington. The report by the D.C. Board of Medicine, to be released Wednesday, shows that 8,490 doctors are licensed to work in the nation's capital, but only about 4,000 practice in the District. And of those, only 2,821 spend more than 20 hours a week seeing patients (Sun, 9/27).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.