The case concerned Dean Patrick Witt, a twenty-five-year-old staff sergeant from the Air Force who died after a nurse in a military hospital inserted a breathing tube down the wrong part of his throat during an appendectomy, an operation generally considered to be “routine.”

A decision made by the Supreme Court in 1950, the Feres Doctrine, blocked Witt’s family from suing the hospital for compensation.

The effort to invalidate the Feres Doctrine has received significant support from veterans groups and active-duty military officers, seven of whom filed briefs in Witts case, in order to demonstrate the public’s interest in this legislation.

After the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey (D – New York) said that later this year he’ll reintroduce legislation to change the law, but he pointed out that it’s already survived more than a few legal challenges and congressional attempts to overturn it, so he’ll be fighting an uphill battle.

Two years ago, a similar bill that Hinchey co-sponsored, proposed in the name of a 29-year-old Iraq war veteran of the Marines who died of skin cancer that his family believes was misdiagnosed, saw some movement, but the Republicans on the Hill opposed the measure claiming it would open up the military to expensive lawsuits that would not service families, but would benefit trial attorneys.

If the law is changed, the federal government would be exposed to billions of dollars in liability claims, which makes it incredibly unlikely that this Congress, already facing sharp partisan divisions and hunting for ways to cut expenses, will pass any such legislation.

The official estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is that the government would have to pay out about $135 million a year in claims, more if the law was written to be retroactive. Hinchey maintains, however, that the cost would be less than that estimate, since his proposed law would mean a better level of care in military hospitals, resulting in fewer negligence claims. He pointed out that federal prisoners have more rights than members of the military and their families when it comes to seeking recompense for medical malpractice.

Speaking to the press about the case, Hinchey said, “It is disappointing that the Supreme Court has again failed to correct the mistake it made 61 years ago when it wrongly decided Feres.”

The Austin, TX-based attorney whose firm represented the Witt famly, Jamal Alsaffar, said that he and other activists had been hopeful that this case would lead to a change in the law. He believes that Hinchey’s proposal in Congress is the best hope now.

“We’re not going to give up the fight for these military families,” Alsaffar said to the press. “We’re going to do whatever we can do to right this wrong.”

This information comes from a study recently published by the American Psychological Association. The researchers involved looked at data from the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ National Health Interview surveys for the years 1999, 2002, and 2007, and focused mainly on comparing the results of the latter two surveys which included responses from 30,080 adults from 44,540 households in 2002 and 23,393 adults from 40,377 households in 2007.

According to the study’s lead author, Amy Wachholtz, PhD, from the University of Massachusetts medical School, “The United States did have an increase in worship attendance across multiple religious faiths immediately after the 9/11 attack, but that has not stayed elevated. However, people continued to use informal and private spiritual practices such as prayer. There is also a greater public awareness of Buddhist-based mindfulness practices that can include prayerful meditation, which individuals may also be using to address a variety of health concerns.”

Increased prayer was noted in people whose health dramatically declined as well as those whose health significantly improved, suggesting that it was a method of coping with the changing circumstances of their health, according to the study.

A greater amount of prayer was noted in most demographic groups, though those with higher incomes were less likely to pray about their health than those with lower incomes. The most likely people to pray about health conditions were the well-educated, women, and African-Americans.

However, while prayer was used by people with good incomes and decent medical insurance, Wachholtz pointed out that, “People are not exchanging health insurance for prayer.”

What follows are a two numbered excerpts from the speech:

1. “Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.

“Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare’s purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid. We will change the way we pay for health care — not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.”

2. “But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.”

But don’t take my word for it. Watch this week’s video:

According to a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it is waiving the requirement that insurance companies must spend a minimum of 80 cents of every premium dollar on medical care and quality improvement. Maine is being allowed to maintain it’s current standard of a minimum of 65 cents of every dollar, though HHS has stated that it will review the figures in two years, and could revoke the waiver at that point.

This decision has made Maine the first state to receive a waiver of this requirement. Requests from Kentucky, Nevada, and New Hampshire are currently pending.

Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Kofman said the waiver was requested out of the fear that one of the three major insurers in the state would withdraw from the market completely. That insurer, MEGA Life and Health Insurance Co, currently holds 37% of the state’s individual health insurance policies.

Under the Affordable Care Act, all health plans are legally required to cover children with pre-existing conditions. In order to accommodate insurance industry concerns that such children would only be enrolled when they became sick, however, the federal government enabled individual states to create special open enrollments.

Kreidler issued an emergency order creating such an enrollment period which will run from November 1st through December 15th, during which time those seeking individual health plans for their entire family or only for their kids can enroll them without having to participate in an exam.

In response to this, Regence BlueShield, the largest health insurer in the individual market notified the commissioner’s office that it would stop selling individual health insurance policies to children effective October 1, 2010.

Commissioner Kriedler said, “Regence’s decision had a serious impact on Washington families and could’ve had a devastating impact on the insurance market. We worked hard with the large health insurers to accommodate their concerns and most, including Premera and Group Health did the right thing. Frankly, Regence deserves the backlash from its decision. It overreacted and now finds itself in violation of the law.”

Regence currently has approximately 2,500 child-only policies in force.

Kreidler added, “Hundreds of consumers have contacted my office, upset over Regence refusing to cover kids and for blaming its recent rate increases on health reform. I can understand why they’re confused and mad. I’m sick and tired of the insurance industry pulling these stunts and misleading the public about health reform. I expect better of companies wanting to do business in Washington.”

Source:the Insurance Journal

According to Reuters, a report released on Tuesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s top Democrats, the number of people who have been refused health insurance plans for pre-existing conditions by Aetna, Humana, United Health Group, and WellPoint has risen by 49 percent in the past three years. These denials have affected thousands of individuals trying to buy their own insurance. In 2009, for example, 257,100 people were denied coverage, up from 172,400 in 2007.

Overall, said committee members, insurance companies refused to sell plans to one in every seven applicants, or more than 651,000 people.

While the health care reforms passed last March would make such denials illegal, those protections don’t kick in until 2014. Until then, only children have guaranteed coverage – and, speaking of children – all four of those insurance consider pregnancy to be a pre-existing condition, which triggers automatic denials. As well, most of them won’t cover maternity care under policies issued to women who are not already pregnant, though some do offer additional pregnancy “rider” policies.

The result? According to the report, “…women who are pregnant, expectant fathers, and families attempting to adopt children are generally unable to obtain health insurance in the individual market.” As with other pre-existing conditions, changes to maternity coverage don’t come into force until 2014.

Currently, consumers can apply for coverage through a temporary national program that functions as a stop-gap.

With these results coming out just weeks before the mid-term congressional elections, Democrats are using them to tout the health laws passed last spring. Even so, consumer advocates say there is precious little relief available to those who are not insured through an employer or government program.

Steven Findlay, a senior health policy analyst with consumers Untion explained to the press, “We will continue to see an insurance market that does not allow people to get in. Some companies may try to clean up their act a little bit.”

The America’s Health Insurance Plans, an organization which represents American health insurers and largely fought against the health care reform law passed this year, has said that companies must determine a potential customer’s health beforehand to prevent individuals from seeking coverage only after they get sick. “Health plans recognize that individuals with pre-existing medical conditions have difficulty obtaining coverage,” AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach said.

A new poll from the AP found that U.S. citizens who feel the health care reform law should have greater scope outnumber those who think government involvement in healthcare is wrong by 2-1.

When the reforms passed in March, 2010 finally complete their phase in in 2019, more than 30 million people who currently don’t have insurance, will, but, that will still leave another 20 million (give or take) without coverage. The AP poll found that 40% of adults think the new legislation didn’t go far enough to really change the state of the healthcare system, no matter whether they support or oppose the law, in theory. On the other hand roughly 20% of those polled oppose healthcare reform because they feel the government shouldn’t be involved in it at all. Overall, 30% of those polled were for the law, 40% opposed it, and another 30% were essentially neutral.

The survey in question involved interviews with about 1250 randomly chosen adults from across the country, conducted from August 31st – September 7th. There is a margin of error in the results of plus/minus 3.9 percent.

In a teleconference with the press, Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA said that the healthcare reform measures amounted to, “…one of the largest middle-income tax cuts in history…” and that it will enable many U.S. citizens to “…afford premiums that stretch family budgets….”

The study that found these results, called Lower Taxes, Lower Premiums, found that most of the families that will be eligible for these tax credits will employed mainly by small businesses, and will have annual incomes between $44,100 and $88,200 for families of four, or two to four times the the 2010 federal poverty level. “However,” the report said, “because the size of the tax credits will be determined on a sliding scale based on income, those with the lowest incomes will receive the largest tax credit, which will ensure that the assistance is targeted to those who need it the most.” Under these guidelines, a four-person family with annual income of $60,000 that purchases a $15,000 family insurance plan in 2014 would receive tax relief of about $10,200, while a four-person family with annual income of $35,000 would receive tax relief totaling about $13,600.

The roughly 13.8 million people who have no insurance coverage will be eligible for a premium tax credit, and about 14.8 million people with insurance coverage will qualify for the credit, the study said.

In an interview with the Daily Mail Foster said that his state’s high obesity and smoking rates exacerbate other health issues, including cancer, chronic lung disease, congestive heart failure, and diabetes. but A state lawmaker attributes West Virginia’s high rate of disabled workers to smoking and other poor health habits.

Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha, told the Charleston Daily Mail that the state’s high smoking and obesity rates contribute to other health issues, including diabetes, chronic lung disease, congestive heart failure and cancer. His statement comes on the heels of last month’s report from the Social Security Administration that more than five percent of West Virginia’s population – the greatest percentage in the United States – is considered to be disabled workers.

Foster elaborated, “We have an unhealthy population. We have the highest percentage of people with chronic disabilities, whether that’s disabilities that are incurred in the workplace or related to chronic diseases that have occurred because of unhealthy habits of one sort or another.”

Senator Foster allowed that changing ingrained behaviors can be difficult, but suggested that the state could help improve residents’ health by increasing the tax on cigarettes, and disseminating better information about exercise and nutrition.

Bad health habits are not the only factor in West Virginia’s alarming numbers, however. The economy is also to blame. The Congressional Budget Office released a report last July which said that when employment is easily attainable many technically-disabled people choose to work, but when employment is scarce they turn to disability programs.