Stepping into the land of the Trump resistance, Seema Verma flatly rejected California’s pursuit of single-payer health care as unworkable and dismissed the Affordable Care Act as too flawed to ever succeed. Speaking Wednesday at the Commonwealth Club here, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said she supports granting states flexibility…
California Hospital Giant Sutter Health Faces Heavy Backlash On Prices
Cooking dinner one night in March, Mark Frizzell sliced his pinkie finger while peeling a butternut squash and couldn’t stop the bleeding. The 51-year-old businessman headed to the emergency room at Sutter Health’s California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Sutter charged $1,555 for the 10 minutes it treated him, including $55 for a gel…
California Bill Targets Profiteering In Addiction Treatment, Dialysis Industries
A California lawmaker is seeking to rein in addiction treatment centers and dialysis providers accused of profiteering off vulnerable patients by collecting millions of dollars in inflated medical claims. Supporters of the proposed legislation, scheduled for a key Senate hearing next month, say some providers, industry middlemen and charities with ties to providers are signing patients…
Judge Orders New Olympus Trial Over Superbug Death
A Seattle judge said Olympus Corp. failed to properly disclose internal emails that raised safety concerns about a redesigned medical scope as early as 2008, several years before the device was publicly tied to deadly superbug outbreaks. Citing those “willful discovery violations” by the Japanese device giant, King County Superior Court Judge Steve Rosen ordered a…
Health Giant Sutter Destroys Evidence In Crucial Antitrust Case Over High Prices
Sutter Health intentionally destroyed 192 boxes of documents that employers and labor unions were seeking in a lawsuit that accuses the giant Northern California health system of abusing its market power and charging inflated prices, according to a state judge. In a ruling this week, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Curtis E.A. Karnow said Sutter…
California Firm Running Physician Practices Is Closing Down As Scrutiny Ramps Up
SynerMed, a company that manages physician practices serving hundreds of thousands of Medicaid and Medicare patients across California, is planning to shut down amid scrutiny from state regulators and health insurers. The company’s chief executive, James Mason, notified employees in an internal email Nov. 6, obtained by Kaiser Health News, that audits by health plans found…
Tab For Single-Payer Proposal In California Could Run $400 Billion
A proposed single-payer health system in California would cost about $400 billion annually, with up to half of that money coming from a new payroll tax on workers and employers, according to a state analysis. The report by the state Senate Appropriations Committee, issued Monday, put a price tag for the first time on legislation that…
California Fines Kaiser Permanente $2.5 Million Over Missing Medicaid Data
California officials have fined health care giant Kaiser Permanente $2.5 million for failing to turn over required data on patient care to the state’s Medicaid program. The California Department of Health Care Services said this was the first fine imposed against one of its Medicaid managed care plans since at least 2000. The state relies…
Leading Republicans See A Costly Malpractice Crisis — Experts Don’t
As top Republicans see it, a medical malpractice crisis is threatening U.S. health care: Frivolous lawsuits are driving up malpractice insurance premiums and forcing physicians out of business. Doctors and hospitals live in fear of litigation, ordering excessive tests and treatments that make healthcare unaffordable for Americans. That’s why Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and…
Surgeon’s Failure To Disclose Conflicts Of Interest Costs $8.5 Million
The University of California regents have agreed to pay nearly $8.5 million to settle two lawsuits alleging a well-known UCLA spine surgeon failed to disclose his conflicts of interest with a leading device maker before using the company’s products in harmful surgeries. The settlements were approved last month in separate Los Angeles County Superior Court cases…