Month: April 2012

Mr. Ryan, 42, of Wisconsin, has become perhaps the most influential policy maker in the Republican Party, its de facto head of economic policy, intent on a fundamental transformation of the federal government. His prescriptions in the Republican budget plan he devised have become his party’s marching orders: cut income tax rates and simplify the code, privatize Medicare, shrink the food-stamp and Medicaid programs and turn almost all control over to the states, and reduce domestic federal spending to its smallest share of the economy since World War II. (NEW YORK TIMES, 4/30)

Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, Wis. is one of the largest medical systems in the U.S., with 1.2 million patients under care in its system. The folks who run the place are wisely getting ready for the future, brought about by Obamacare, which is a future in which providers like Aurora will see more of their reimbursements and profits based on better outcomes, not the mere act of performing more services and surgeries. (FORBES, 4/30)

A new Medical College of Wisconsin campus in Green Bay would start with 25 students in a condensed three-year academic program. That's according to college officials who visited the region on Thursday, noting that the possible campus development would represent an $11 million investment and would result in a start-up operation that could be expanded later and also branch out into medical research. (GREEN BAY PRESS GAZETTE, 4/27)

Families’ eagerly awaited new arrivals will occupy a featured spot at St. Elizabeth Hospital when a $65 million renovation that puts a priority on birth services is completed in October. (APPLETON POST CRESCENT, 4/26)

Milwaukee's infant mortality rate dropped to a historic low in 2011. But the rate at which black babies died during their first year of life ticked upward, to nearly three times the rate of white babies. "We're pleased with the overall numbers," Mayor Tom Barrett said Tuesday. "But we have to put more emphasis on the African-American rate." (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/25)

Children's Hospital of Wisconsin will officially announce Tuesday that it successfully performed the state's first pediatric heart-and-liver transplant, the same day the 15-year-old Chicago boy is scheduled to be released from the hospital. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/24)

The Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured, a joint venture of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Columbia St. Mary’s , will expand its services to include pediatric patients not covered by health insurance. (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/24)

It is the little building project that could. For more than 10 years, the UW-Madison School of Nursing building has gone through a strange and twisting odyssey as politicians and officials flip-flopped about the fate of the project. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 4/23)