Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Financial Pressures On NYC Public Hospitals May Far Outstrip Benefits Of De Blasio's Universal Coverage Plan
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he’s turning the city into a model for how the nation can provide health care to all, including the poor, the uninsured and undocumented immigrants. In doing so, he boasts he’s saved the city’s public hospitals from bankruptcy and can provide universal care for just $100 million by steering New Yorkers away from emergency rooms and into managed-care clinics. Yet he may have promised more than he can deliver. (Goldman, 1/29)
The rate of hospital-acquired conditions declined by 13% from 2014 to 2017, saving the providers $7.7 billion and preventing 20,500 hospital deaths, according to preliminary data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In the report released Tuesday, AHRQ said hospitals reported 2.55 million hospital-acquired conditions, or HACs, in 2017 for all inpatients 18 years and older, which is down from the 2.94 million HACs reported in 2014. From 2010 through preliminary 2017 data, the average annual reduction in the overall rate of HACs is about 4.5%, the report said. (Castellucci, 1/29)
Other hospital news comes out of Illinois, Nevada, California, Texas and Louisiana —
The new owner of three money-losing Chicago-area hospitals plans to work on turning them around after buying the facilities for $70 million this week. Los Angeles-based Pipeline Health hopes to make Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park and West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park more sustainable, said Jim Edwards, CEO of Pipeline and also a part-owner of the for-profit company. (Schencker, 1/29)
A Las Vegas hospital has been ordered to pay nearly $43 million to the family of a woman who died while in the hospital’s care. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports jurors ruled in favor of plaintiffs Dwayne Murray and his 7-year-old daughter, Brooklynn, and ordered Centennial Hills Hospital to pay more than $10.5 million in compensatory damages and $32.4 million in punitive damages. The jury ruled the hospital and its staff breached standards of care by administering a drug that killed Murray’s wife, 29-year-old LaQuinta Whitley Murray. (1/29)
A Los Angeles bankruptcy judge has tentatively denied a request by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to block the sale of O’Connor Hospital and St. Louise Regional Hospital to the county of Santa Clara, ruling Becerra doesn’t have the authority to regulate the deal. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ernest Robles, who ruled in December that the attorney general doesn’t have the authority to regulate the sale of private hospitals to public entities, wrote that Becerra’s attorneys have made the same argument they did when he ruled against them in December. (Vo, 1/29)
When U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris approved the sale of six nonprofit California hospitals in 2015 as the state attorney general, she imposed strict conditions on the new corporate owners, requiring them to continue to provide critical health services to area residents. Now her successor, fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra, is asserting his authority in court to enforce those conditions on Santa Clara County, which wants to buy two of the hospitals out of bankruptcy. County officials warn that the attorney general’s stance could force the closure of the hospitals, limiting health care access for hundreds of thousands of people. (Young and Feder Ostrov, 1/29)
A Los Angeles-based hospital management company is expanding its North Texas presence by acquiring 22 freestanding emergency rooms. Pipeline Health LLC announced Tuesday that it had bought Texas Health Resources' majority stake in the freestanding emergency rooms. Texas Health is the Arlington-based hospital network. Pipeline Health will own the emergency rooms with Adeptus Health, a Lewisville-based company that was acquired by a hedge fund after filing for bankruptcy. (Repko, 1/29)
University Medical Center is searching for a new CEO after promoting its current one to the second highest ranking executive role in the LCMC Health system. UMC’s former CEO Bill Masterton has been promoted to LCMC Health’s market CEO, according to a press release. There he will oversee the operational and financial performance of the system’s four adult hospitals: West Jefferson Medical Center, UMC, Touro Infirmary and New Orleans East Hospital. (Clark, 1/29)
