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

Iowa News

Loring Hospital receives federal grant
Loring Hospital in Sac City has received a $262,742 federal grant for installing video conferencing equipment. The funds are through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant. Money will be used to buy equipment for the emergency room and patient areas. Some East Sac County School District buildings will also be equipped. Telemedical equipment such as digital stethoscopes will be connected to the network. (Sioux City Journal)

Rations pared, lines still long at pantries
Monday marked the first day of reduced rations at central Iowa’s food pantries, a front line of defense against hunger. At a West Des Moines pantry, a young mother carried two fewer grocery bags and no milk, while a Vietnam-era veteran said he would line up for free bread if he runs short on food. The Des Moines Area Religious Council, which supplies 12 area pantries, has decreased by 40 percent the items it provides in weekly food boxes for families. The council cut back because donations, which remained flat this year, did not keep up with a record 12,650 families served — 30 percent more than in 2010. (Des Moines Register)

National News

Congress at impasse over must-pass measures
Congress is supposed to head home for the holidays at the end of this week, but there’s a whole lot of work to do before then. And for now at least, the parties remain divided over a number of other must-pass measures. This is the part of the tango of Congress where the Republican House offers a plan. “The House is going to do its job, and it’s time for the Senate then to do its job,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, at a press conference Monday. (National Public Radio)

GOP bill would benefit doctor-owned hospitals
The House Republican bill to hold down payroll taxes and extend unemployment benefits, coming up for a vote on Tuesday, offers a special dispensation to doctors who invest in hospitals. The bill would repeal and relax several provisions of the 2010 health care law that clamped down on doctor-owned hospitals. The bill would allow such hospitals to open if they were under construction at the end of last year, and it would allow them to expand if they were already in existence. Congressional aides say dozens of hospitals and their physician owners could benefit. Numerous studies have found that when doctors have a financial stake in a hospital, they tend to order more tests and procedures, raising costs for Medicare and other insurers. (New York Times)

Berwick: It’s the delivery system
Dr. Donald Berwick, who oversaw Medicare and Medicaid until earlier this month, defended the programs Monday, but said they are trapped in a U.S. health system that promotes wasteful spending and inefficient care. Health care is broken,” Berwick said in an interview with Kaiser Health News. “… We have set up a delivery system that is fragmented, unsafe, not patient-centered, full of waste and unreliable. Despite the best efforts of the workforce, we built it wrong. It isn’t built for modern times.” (Kaiser Health News)

Plan to raise Medicare premiums for upper-income retirees would affect middle class
Raising taxes on millionaires may be a non-starter for Republicans, but they seem to have no problem hiking Medicare premiums for retirees making a lot less. The House is expected to vote Tuesday on a year-end economic package that includes increasing premiums for “high-income” Medicare beneficiaries, currently those making $85,000 and above for individuals, or $170,000 for families. (Washington Post)