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

Iowa News

Lawmakers tout new health care plan
Legislative leaders are touting a plan to make health care easier for poor and moderate-income Iowans to find, but they acknowledged Tuesday the meatiest parts of the plan couldn’t take effect without increased federal money. (Des Moines Register)

King, Bachmann to launch health care ‘declaration’
U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, hopes to reshape the national health care reform debate today when he introduces the Declaration of Health Care Independence. (Sioux City Journal)

State money lets Polk County pull 160 off mental health care waiting list
One hundred sixty Polk County residents have been removed from a waiting list for long-term mental health care that reached record levels last year. The development is a “good start,” Polk County Supervisor Robert Brownell said. But 490 people with mental disorders or retardation will continue to wait two years or longer for intensive support. (Des Moines Register)

Siouxland blood bank in merger talks
Talks between the Sioux City-based blood bank and the Blood Center of Iowa, headquartered in Des Moines, are aimed at lowering the cost of blood for the more than 85 hospitals served by the two organizations. (Sioux City Journal)

Iowa Health, Mercy expand robotic surgeries
Central Iowa’s competing medical centers, which each use comparable versions of the system, are expanding their use of the sophisticated devices. By the end of this year, both Iowa Health – Des Moines and Mercy Medical Center – Des Moines expect to increase the number of surgeons they have trained on the system to 20. Iowa Health currently has 14 surgeons certified to use the Da Vinci; Mercy has 15. (Des Moines Business Record)

Trooper relay bring blood to patient
Iowa state troopers rushed a load of life-saving blood over snowy highways Monday night to help a heart surgery patient at Trinity Regional Medical Center in Fort Dodge. (Fort Dodge Messenger)

Heroes emerge from snow-whipped pileup
As Latimer firefighters arrived at the scene of the Interstate 35 multi-vehicle crash Monday, Fire Chief Mike Keehn said he looked out “and all I thought was, ‘Oh my God.’ ” (Mason City Globe Gazette)

U.S. News

Democrats slow efforts on health
After dominating the congressional agenda for months, fixing the health system is taking on less urgency as Democrats place more emphasis on measures to create jobs and help the economy recover. House and Senate leaders say they see no easy options for completing the type of comprehensive overhaul each chamber approved last year. They are also discussing whether to try a scaled-back package, another path that has high hurdles. (Wall Street Journal)

Florida hospitals report on Haitian health care efforts
The University of Miami medical school, which has established a 300-bed hospital in Port-au-Prince, is spending “at least a couple of million in the first month,” said Dean Pascal Goldschmidt. Meanwhile, the financially strapped Jackson Health System has treated 97 earthquake victims as of Jan. 25. (Miami Herald)

Maine hospitals claim state owes them millions
Facing budget cuts, the Maine Hospital Association says it needs the hundreds of millions of dollars it claims the state currently owes it in back MaineCare payments. The Hospital Association, representing all the facilities in the state, says it will be owed $300 million in back payments by the end of the year. (Fox 23-Portland)

Mayo Clinic’s philanthropy campaign raises $1.35 billion
Mayo raised the amount in five years instead of the seven years initially set for the campaign, and exceeded its target of $1.25 billion. A portion of the money will fund research on cancer and depression. Some funds will go toward a subspecialty pediatric clinic in Rochester, a new hospital in Florida, and a new campus for cancer and transplant patients in Arizona. (Minneapolis Start Tribune)

Offer to take over ailing hospital stirs outcry
One of New York City’s largest hospital systems has made an offer to take over the financially struggling St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, provoking opposition from elected officials who fear the loss of critical medical services, especially emergency care, for tens of thousands of patients who could be sent elsewhere. (New York Times)

Stimulus is now $75 billion more expensive
The Congressional Budget Office hiked its forecast Tuesday for how much the stimulus bill will add to the nation’s deficit, raising its estimate by $75 billion to $862 billion. But the Medicaid match program, in which the government helps states pay for Medicaid expenses, saw came in less than expected. The CBO now estimates that the program will cost $3 billion less than originally thought. (CNN)

Oncology spins a message with figure skating
As figure skaters glided through last weekend’s national championships in hopes of securing a berth on the Olympic team, one prominent display on the rink sideboards advertised a different type of hope — the patient education site Cancer.Net. (MedPage Today)