Other Voices

“If there is any hope that Congress' new healthcare bill will put some restraints around the growth in medical costs, it rests in the part of the proposal that calls for rewarding programs that reshape how medicine gets practiced. And ‘reshaping medicine' includes using studies that point the way to the best practices. … And the Obama administration has the chance to invest in one such program with Dallas ties—the Nurse-Family Partnership—when it starts giving out $1.5 billion in home healthcare grants later this year. … Registered nurses are put directly into the community, where they work with mothers before and after birth. … Yes, there's an upfront cost, about $5,000 per patient. But the savings justify the cost. There is evidence to back up this medical practice.”

—Dallas Morning News

“The Republican candidate for governor with years of legislative experience and scant support in the opinion polls dropped out of the race. … The Republican candidate with no political experience who headed a corrupt hospital company is moving up in the polls and is the only serious primary challenger to the favorite. … The reason for both developments, of course, is money. … Healthcare executive Rick Scott paid for more than $6 million in television ads out of his own pocket and captured 22% of the vote in the latest St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9/Central Florida News 13 poll. He has bought his way into the race and can no longer be dismissed as an obscure wealthy businessman indulging his fantasy.”

—St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times

“Few Americans know what a ‘medical loss ratio' is, but a fierce struggle over how to calculate it under the new healthcare reform law will determine how much insurers must spend on patient care and how much they can retain for administration and profits. This is but one of many battles that will emerge as federal and state regulators develop regulations to implement reform. … Regulators will have to find an approach that prevents insurers from gaming the system while encouraging them to spend money on meaningful measures to improve quality—a major goal of the reform law.”

—New York Times