Month: March 2011

Dean Health Plan has received the highest satisfaction rating from its members, according to a J.D. Power and Associates survey of nine health insurance plans in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Dean received the maximum five stars in all of the categories: coverage, provider choice, information and overall experience. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 3/23)

Paula Lucey, a retired county health administrator, was hired to take oversee the county's troubled Mental Health Complex, county officials said Tuesday. Lucey, 57, will be paid up to $130,000 over the next 12 months, under a one-year contract as the county's behavioral health administrator. The county has been searching for a new administrator since last August, when John Chianelli was demoted from the post. The shake-up came days after the Journal Sentinel's "Patients in Peril" series outlined bungled care at the complex, management shortcomings and gaps in employee training. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 3/23)

The proposed state budget is the end result of short-term fixes, a crawling economy and growing state programs that make the status quo unsustainable, a policy expert said Monday. Todd Berry, president of the nonpartisan group Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, said an array of factors has drained the state’s financial health, but pointed most notably to Medicaid, a quick-fix attitude and a lack of new investment in Wisconsin. (WAUSAU DAILY HERALD, 3/22)

Anti-abortion advocates applaud Gov. Scott Walker's budget provision that would allow insurance companies to again choose whether to cover birth control. But industry officials say it's unlikely many plans would drop contraceptive coverage. Phil Dougherty, senior executive officer at the Wisconsin Association of Health Plans, said most of the insurance plans in Wisconsin offered coverage prior to the mandate. (WAUSAU DAILY HERALD, 3/22)

A band of retired Wisconsinites marched around the Capitol building Monday in protest of Gov. Scott Walker’s bill to limit collective bargaining and proposed biennium budget that they said would have injurious effects on the state’s elderly population. The protesters, organized by the non-profit advocacy group Wisconsin Alliance of Retired Americans that represents more than 85,000 state residents, first held a convention in the Concourse Hotel to draft a resolution solidifying their opposition to Walker’s budget proposals. (BADGER HERALD, 3/22)

Women's health advocates are rallying against provisions of Gov. Scott Walker's proposed state budget they say would severely cripple the availability of family planning and sexual health services to low-income populations. The proposal would reduce funding for sexual assault victim services and pregnant woman smoking cessation program First Breath and repeal the Contraceptive Equity law that prevented insurance companies from denying coverage of prescription birth control, said Sara Finger, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health. (WISCONSIN RAPIDS TRIBUNE, 3/22)

Two weeks after President Obama signed the nation’s health-care overhaul into law, then-Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) issued an executive order creating an Office of Health Care Reform. Over the next eight months, the Badger State made more headway than virtually anywhere else in the country at preparing to carry the statute out…Then, in late January, Doyle’s Republican successor, Scott Walker, issued his own executive order, dissolving the health reform office and replacing it with the Office of Free Market Health Care. (WASHINGTON POST, 3/21)

A federal Food and Drug Administration official says the agency is “very concerned” about detection of new, potentially dangerous bacteria in iodine prep pads made by a Wisconsin firm already under scrutiny for tainted alcohol wipes tied to infections and death. But it will take more time and more analysis to decide what action to take regarding H&P Industries, Inc., the parent company of the Triad Group of Hartland, Wis., said Michael Rogers, the FDA’s acting director of the Office of Regional Operations. (MSNBC, 3/21)

Now that the first of them has reached retirement age, baby boomers are redefining the meaning of golden years with their can-do, forever-young attitude. The sheer number of them flooding the retirement system — one every eight seconds until the year 2030 — also is expected to strain and perhaps overwhelm resources in health care, employment and countless other areas. (GREEN BAY PRESS GAZETTE, 3/21)