Month: February 2013

Over the last several years many medical schools have tightened policies to limit the amount of interaction and gift-giving by pharmaceutical companies and medical students. But a new paper suggests that such practices still are common. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 2/28)

The 87,000 parents who would be shifted from Medicaid to a health insurance exchange under Gov. Scott Walker's budget "will see the value of what's being offered" and sign up, outgoing health services secretary Dennis Smith said Tuesday. The parents, who make just above the poverty level, would face monthly premiums starting at $19 a month, Smith said. That doesn't include out-of-pocket costs for care, estimated at $1,850 to $4,200 a year. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 2/27)

Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach said Tuesday that he and some of his Republican colleagues have discussed temporarily accepting a federally funded expansion of Medicaid against the wishes of GOP Gov. Scott Walker. Erpenbach talked about the possible deal during the Wisconsin HealthWatch conference, a meeting of policy makers, consumer advocates, and health care industry representatives. Erpenbach was on a panel of Democratic lawmakers, all of whom roundly criticized Walker's recent moves to reject key portions of the federal health care overhaul law. (AP, 2/27)