New York State has banned United Healthcare's managed care plan, an arm of the nation's second-largest health insurer, from signing up most types of new customers. State regulators say they took the rare action because the company has persistently defied state rules.

For at least three years, United Healthcare has repeatedly filed late, incomplete or inaccurate reports to the state about its finances and subcontracting, and has wrongly denied payment to doctors and other providers, along with a range of other violations, said officials at the State Health Department.

Attention Shoppers: Low Prices on Shots in Clinic
By MILT FREUDENHEIM

Everyday low prices on strep-throat exams.

That is the basic idea behind a retail approach to routine medical care now catching on among consumers and entrepreneurs. At Wal-Mart, CVS and other chain stores, walk-in health clinics are springing up as an antidote to the expense and inconvenience of full-service doctors' offices or the high-cost and impersonal last resort of emergency rooms.

For a $30 flu shot, a $45 treatment for an ear infection or other routine services from a posted price list, patients can visit nurse practitioners in independently operated clinics set up within the stores — whose own pharmacies can fill prescriptions.

U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says
Research: 2 million babies die in first 24 hours each year worldwide
By Jeff Green

(CNN) -- An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.

American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.

While African American men are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, they paradoxically have fewer cases of coronary obstruction than clinically similar white men, according to a new national study led by a Medical College of Wisconsin researcher. The study results, to appear in the May 16 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, will be presented on April 27 at the American Medical Association's science news briefing in New York.

Quote of note:

The conclusion, he added, is that "in and of themselves, the high-deductible health plans have a zero impact on health-care [cost] trends. Clearly, if you ask people to pay more money, you will get a one-time reduction in the base cost. But they have a zero impact on annual trends."

Debating the Impact of High-Deductible Health Plans
By Albert B. Crenshaw
Sunday, April 30, 2006; F08

The current Next Big Thing in controlling health-care costs is "consumer-driven" medical insurance.

These plans combine a high-deductible insurance policy with a tax-preferred savings/investment account. The theory is that the insurance will protect you against catastrophic medical costs -- and pay for most preventive care -- while the savings account can be used to pay for health-care items not covered by the policy.

Employers Push White House to Disclose Medicare Data
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, April 10 — The White House is clashing with the nation's largest employers over their request for huge amounts of government data on the cost and quality of health care provided by doctors around the country.

President Bush has repeatedly urged private insurers to disclose such data, saying it will help consumers choose doctors and hospitals. But Medicare, the nation's largest insurer, has turned down a request for its data from the Business Roundtable, whose member companies provide coverage to more than 25 million people.

Employers want to use the data to compare and rate doctors and to rein in soaring health costs — the very purpose advocated by the president. The data would show, for example, which doctors performed the most knee operations with the fewest complications. Employers said they could then compare the average cost per case for different doctors. And they could steer patients — workers, and retirees and their dependents — to doctors who achieved the best results and offered the best value.

"The Medicare data would be a gold mine of information," said Maria M. Ghazal, director of public policy at the Business Roundtable. Medicare handles more than a billion claims a year.

They do NOT want to give that up. Furthermore, I don't think insurance companies want that out there.

Quote of note:

Providing equal coverage for treatment of mental disorders did not increase the use of mental health services under the federal employee program, the researchers said. But it did lead to "significant reductions in out-of-pocket spending" for many government workers and retirees.

Study Backs Equal Coverage for Mental Ills
By ROBERT PEAR