Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.

Iowa News

Don’t make people risk lives for care
IowaCare generally covers medical treatment at only two hospitals: Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines for Polk County residents and University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City for everyone else. Yes, coverage through IowaCare is better than nothing for thousands of Iowans. But such strict limitations on where people can receive care are unreasonable. (Des Moines Register)

GRMC raises record-setting total for annual fund drive
Grinnell Regional Medical Center announced this week that it raised $363,166.75 from 1,032 donors during its annual fund drive. This is the highest amount ever raised in the medical center’s annual fund history. (GRMC press release)

Morningside College institutes new wellness program
They called in health care professionals from the occupational services of St. Luke’s Health System to help tweak the concepts of “improving health” and “early detection.” (Sioux City Journal)

U.S. News

Hospitals asked to aid quake victims
Partners in Health, a Boston-based international health organization, sent out an SOS yesterday to all US hospitals, asking whether any can accept severely injured patients from Haiti who are in dire need of surgery. (Boston Globe)

Democrats ponder backup plan on health care bill
With the Massachusetts special election for United States Senate increasingly unpredictable, Democrats in Washington are contemplating a fall-back plan to advance far-reaching health care legislation, even if a Republican victory on Tuesday deprives Senate Democrats of the crucial 60th vote they need to overcome filibusters. (New York Times)

Miami psychiatrist defends his record over prescriptions
The practices of Fernando Mendez-Villamil came to light last month when Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, complained about him to federal authorities for writing prescriptions at a rate of 150 a day, seven days a week. Grassley, like many in Congress, is concerned about reducing America’s high healthcare costs to reform the system. (Miami Herald)