Healthcare

Big H.M.O. to Give Decisions on Care Back to Doctors

November 9, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">New York Times</p> <p>The United Health Group said yesterday that it was returning decision-making power over patient care to physicians, breaking with a longstanding element of managed care that has infuriated many doctors and frustrated their patients.</p>

Band-Aids Suggested for Ailing Health Care

November 9, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">Riverside Press-Enterprise</p> <p>Recent trends within the health-care industry may help avert a collapse of the medical-group system and a mass disruption of patient care: New legislation. Gov. Davis on Sept. 27 signed a sweeping package of HMO reform bills, including one that sets fis</p>

State Law Gives Consumers Leverage When HMOs Say, No!

October 31, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">San Diego Union-Tribune</p> <p>Kent Manthorne's troubles began with the discovery of a strange little blotch on his right ear. Years before, he had skin cancer on the same ear, and a dermatologist was telling him that surgery was necessary.</p>

HMO love affair over?

October 20, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<h3>Relationship between money, health hits skids</h3><p class="source">USA TODAY</p> <p>Employers' recent love affair with managed care -- a slimmer, younger, less expensive version of traditional insurance -- has wound up like many affairs: with blame and recrimination.</p>

Advocates, State Officials Hone Call for Patients’ Bill of Rights

October 19, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<h3>Coalition Seeks Support for Referendum</h3><p class="source">Boston Globe</p> <p>Tapping into the same populist outrage against health maintenance organizations and for-profit medicine that has led California and Texas to pass patient protection measures, Massachusetts activists yesterday called for similar protections here.</p>

Activists Call for Moratorium on For-Profit Health Care

October 18, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">Associated Press</p> <p>The state should take steps to make sure its health maintenance organizations remain non-profit, activists said Monday. "Non-profit medicine is the best. If they change over to for-profit centers, it's a disaster waiting to happen," said John O'Connor,</p>

Putting the ‘H’ back in HMO

October 13, 1999  ·  Jamie Court

<h3>Opinion Editorial by Jamie Court</h3><p class="source">Christian Science Monitor</p> <p>California pioneered health maintenance organization medicine, and now it is pioneering its reform. Earlier this month, Gov. Gray Davis signed a new law allowing patients who are seriously harmed to collect punitive damages from HMOs that deny them necess</p>

Too Much Money Goes To Bureaucrats

October 12, 1999  ·  Jamie Court

<h3>Opinion Editorial by Jamie Court</h3><p class="source">Los Angeles Times</p> <p>Patients' rights legislation passed last week by the U.S. House of Representatives and other bills signed into California law recently by Gov. Gray Davis fail to deal with one of the most crippling crisis in health care today: Too much of our health care</p>

Health Care Horror Stories Are Compelling But One-Sided

October 12, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">The New York Times</p> <p>The debate leading up to the House vote last week to expand patients' rights was punctuated by a stream of health care horror stories. Last Wednesday, for example, Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Texas, rose to tell the story of "little St</p>

California Sets New Standards

October 11, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">Chain Drug Review</p> <p>SACRAMENTO, CA -- California, which has been a leader both in the development of the managed care industry and in the regulation of that sector of health care, is implementing new laws that will allow patients to file lawsuits against health maintenance o</p>

JUSTICES TO HEAR CHALLENGE TO HMO SHIELD

September 29, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<h3>CASE IS ONE OF SEVERAL INVOLVING RESPONSIBILITY FOR INJURIES TO PATIENTS. LOWER COURT UPHELD RIGHT TO SUE DESPITE FEDERAL BAR.</h3><p class="source">Los Angeles Times</p> <p>Patients and the managed health care industry will soon face off in the U.S. Supreme Court over whether patients can sue a health plan that puts its bottom line ahead of patient care. The high court announced Tuesday that it will hear a case in which a</p>

Trailblazing California Broadens the Rights of its H.M.O. Patients

September 28, 1999  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">New York Times</p> <p>Gov. Gray Davis signed a package of bills today that will give patients a variety of new rights in their relationship with health maintenance organizations in California and could well influence managed health care coverage across the country.</p>