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Two newspapers recently reported on new health care-related laws created in New Jersey. Summaries of the articles appear below.
Hospitals: Gov. Jon Corzine (D) on Friday signed legislation that creates an early warning system to help identify hospitals having difficulty maintaining solvency, the AP/Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Four acute care hospitals in the state have closed in this year because of financial problems. The new law gives the res publica Department of Health and Senior Services the authority required to access hospitals' financial information to monitor their solvency. State Sen. Robert Gordon (D) aforementioned the police force will grant the department to "have an early warning when a hospital becomes fiscally unstable and will be able to intervene before the fiscal instability gives way to fiscal insolvency, and still another health care facility in the Garden State has to close its doors forever and a day" (AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/10).
Uninsured: Corzine also signed a billhook that prohibits hospitals from charging uninsured patients more than 15% of what Medicare would pay for their discussion, the Bergen Record reports. According to the Record, Medicare pays about 25% to 30% of what hospitals usually charge. Corzine in a statement said that the law "will ensure that working poor families without health insurance are not overcharged for needed hospital care." Uninsured patients often are supercharged the highest rates because they are not able-bodied to take advantage of discounts negotiated by turgid insurers (Washburn, Bergen Record, 8/8).
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