Month: November 2011

In the face of perpetually poor birth outcomes, city officials Wednesday will announce a goal of reducing Milwaukee's infant death rate to a historic low by 2017. It is the first time city officials have set such a target for reducing the rate, aiming to improve the city's status as one of the worst for infants in the nation. The goal is to reduce the black infant mortality rate by 15%, and the city's overall rate by 10%. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 11/9)

An attorney for a Twin Cities television station said a $1 million defamation award will be appealed. A Dakota County jury awarded a holistic healer from Hudson, Wis., compensatory damages in a 2009 story aired by KSTP-TV about the woman's treatment of a patient. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 11/9)

Senator Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, is calling on Governor Scott Walker’s administration to return nearly $50 million in federal health reform funds the state received to implement a health insurance exchange. (WHN, 11/8)

A nationwide effort to make smoking both more expensive and more uncomfortable is forcing smokers to cut back, but it has not reduced the number of smokers. Tobacco purchases nationwide dropped 23 percent between 2007 and 2010, largely because the average price has increased by nearly 50 percent, according to recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That includes a $1.75 state tax hike in Wisconsin since 2008, driving per-pack taxes to $2.52 -- the eighth-highest state tax in the nation. (WAUSAU DAILY HERALD, 11/8)

After months of uncertainty over the Edgerton Care Center’s future in the wake of Edgerton Hospital’s move to the city’s east end, the 61-bed nursing home finally has an answer. The Edgerton Care Center is staying where it is. The care center and the Edgerton Hospital and Health Systems announced Friday that the hospital plans to sell the former hospital building at 313 Stoughton Road to Wisconsin-Illinois Senior Housing, an affiliate of the care center. (JANESVILLE GAZETTE, 11/8)

Quick: Name the massive building that’s emerged from a field on Janesville’s southeast side. If your answer is St. Mary’s Janesville Hospital, you’re slightly more than half right. In fact, Dean Clinic Janesville East will occupy about 150,000 square feet of the 313,000-square-foot building that sits on about 50 acres Dean bought in 2000 on the southeast corner of Highway 11 and Interstate 90/39. (JANESVILLE GAZETTE, 11/8)

Wisconsin is not alone in dealing with the thorny task of trying to lower the cost of its health care programs for low-income residents. Massachusetts no longer pays for restorative dental care and dentures. Washington no longer covers eyeglasses and hearing aids. Minnesota no long covers chiropractic care. Illinois, Iowa and other states planned to require a $50 co-payment for unnecessary visits to emergency departments. And California has proposed a $50 co-payment for all visits to emergency departments and a co-payment of $100 for hospital stays that last one day and $200 for longer stays. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 11/7)