Roundup: States facing across-the-board cuts; Gov. opposes Kentucky hospital merger

Jan 11 2012

A selection of stories about health care from Kentucky, California and Massachusetts.

Stateline: Washington And The States: A Year Of Uncertainty And Foreboding
As a result of last summer's deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, and the consequent failure of the congressional "super committee" to decide on budget cuts, states are bracing for automatic across-the-board cuts in education, social welfare and other programs for the upcoming 2013 fiscal year. Those cuts would come atop federal cuts in 2011 and 2012, not to mention the continuing wind-down of federal stimulus aid (Prah, 1/10).

Boston Globe: Patrick Administration Names Health Quality Committee
The Patrick administration is ramping up efforts to change how health care is paid for in Massachusetts, pushing for a system that rewards hospitals and doctors that lower cost and improve quality of care for patients. Measuring health care quality is a difficult task. The administration today announced the names of the seven appointees who will take on this job (Conaboy, 1/9).

Modern Healthcare: Ky. Governor Affirms Stance Against Including University's Hospital In Merger
Despite calling last week's talks with officials from the University of Louisville productive, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said Monday that the sessions didn't produce ideas that satisfied the state's concerns about the proposed three-way merger. ... Beshear's office released a statement affirming his rejection that prevented the combining of 318-bed University of Louisville Hospital with two Catholic Health Initiatives affiliates to create a 15-hospital statewide network (Selvam, 1/9).

KQED's State of Health blog: Soda Tax: What Can a Penny Do? 
A nationwide penny-per-ounce tax, the authors [of a Health Affairs study] estimate, would reduce sugar-sweetened beverage consumption by 15 percent. ... Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an epidemiologist at UC San Francisco, was the senior author of the study. "We knew that diabetes was a big problem and if you could do something to reduce risk of diabetes, that you would have a big impact. But we're always surprised when we look at the numbers when a relatively small impact could have such a large and measurable benefit in terms of diabetes" (Aliferis, 1/9).