If you're on Medicare, your hospital is going to have to try harder to not make a mistake. New rules this month will stop Medicare from paying for mistakes made by hospitals; including objects left in patients during surgery, falls at the hospital, infections caused after heart surgery or catheters, or bed sores and pressure ulcers. The hospitals will now have to pick up the costs of in-house complications and they can not bill the patient. The move is being taken to reduce costs on taxpayers and improve hospital service quality.

By Doug Cunningham

Missouri is suing the federal government later this month over the Medicare Part D drug benefit program. California will join the suit filed directly with the U.S. Supreme Court. John Fougere is a spokesperson for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon.

[John Fougere 1] : "The Medicare Part D, which took effect January first, has not only left many seniors without needed medication, but in our view it also saddled our taxpayers here in Missouri with $400 million in additional costs over the next five years while infringing dramatically on state sovereignity."

Nationwide at least 100,000 seniors eligible for the program are having problems getting their medicines under the program. Fougere says for state governments this program is turning out to be very costly and not very effective at delivering prescription drugs to the elderly who need them.

By Doug Cunningham

Missouri Republicans -led by Gov. Matt Blunt - are carrying out the most extreme Medicaid cuts in the nation, according to an Illinois attorney trying to stop what he says are illegal cuts aimed at the poorest and sickest people in Missouri. Attorney Thomas Kennedy the state is cutting payments for wheelchairs, hospital beds, breathing aids and other durable medical equipment that more than 300,000 people in Missouri are depending on.

[Thomas Kennedy 1] : "These cuts are unparalleled not just in Missouri but in the United States. I'm not familiar with anyplace where cuts like this have been made. This is unbelievable. And people are suffering like crazy on account of it. And it's illegal. Just plain, dead bang illegal in my opinion."

Republican Governor Matt Blunt has signed a bill eliminating Medicaid in Missouri by 2008. It's the first step in wiping out the Medicaid coverage of 100,000 of Missouri's poorest people. A committee is supposed to report back by January on a replacement program for Medicaid. Mike Hoey (Hoy) is a spokesman for the Missouri Catholic conference. He says this action violates the Catholic Church's culture of life philosophy because providing basic human dignity, including medical care, to the least among us is a moral obligation of government.

[Mike Hoey] : "It definitely is a part of the culture of life. We've found for example that when Medicaid health coverage for pregnant women - when Missouri expanded that from like 133 to a 185 percent of the federal poverty level - the very next year the number of abortions went down dramatically. So we do think that it is a part of the culture of life to ensure that people have health coverage."

In Wisconsin a coalition of labor and progressive groups is calling on the state to charge Walmart for the health care costs taxpayers are paying for
Walmart employees. Darcy Haber of Wisconsin Citizen Action says Wisconsin taxpayers are paying millions of dollars a year because Walmart won't pay for adequate health insurance overage for its workers.

[Darcy Haber 1]: "It's close to two million dollars of taxpayer money here in Wisconsin, but it's also another three million dollars of our federal tax dollars. It's about five million dollars that taxpayers are paying every year to subsidize the health insurance of Walmart workers."

Wal-Mart can't compete with with the medicaid programs offered by some states. That's according to CEO Lee Scott, when asked at this week's Wal-Mart media conference in Bentonville, Arkansas why in 11 out of 12 states where studies have been done, Wal-Mart employees lead-in state run Medicaid programs.

[Blank1]: We didn't think he would actually say what he did, which was quote-on-quote, the public program in some states may actually be of better value then Wal-Mart's program.

Paul Blank is a spokesperson for "wakeupWalMart.com" a website started by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. He flew to Bentonville to promote the website to reporter's gathered for the media conference. He says he was shocked to hear Scott say the world's largest retailer couldn't compete with state health programs.

[Blank2]: He thinks that we should pay for their healthcare plans so that he can continue to make his $23 million dollar salary. As opposed to Wal-Mart standing up and doing the right thing for it's workers - and now it's not just the workers, it's all of society.

Arkansas joins a long list of state's saying Wal-Mart is number one. The world's largest retail chain whose main headquarters is in Bentonville, Arkansas is the number one beneficiary of public health care programs in that state. An article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says Wal-Mart costs it's home state nearly $16 million annually. The report says that 3,971 of the companies 45,106 employees in that state are on public assistance. While the retailer does offer healthcare to some employees, a study done by the AFL-CIO late last year said that the insurance premium for many Wal-Mart families was as high as $250 per month. Part-time employees do not qualify for family coverage. Many critics aren't surprised by the Arkansas report as Georgia, Tennessee, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Connecticut have all released similar findings. In addition, the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center did a study last year that found Wal-Mart workers costing California taxpayers $86 million annually.

Wal-Mart workers cost taxpayers in states like California, Washington Georgia and Tennessee tens of millions of dollars a year in the hidden costs of low-wage jobs. Thousands of Wal-Mart workers are on state subsidized health insurance because they lack adewquate employer-provided health insurance. Ken Jacobs of UC-Berkeley's Labor Center says organizing Wal-Mart would be the best response to dealing with the burden of these hidden taxpayer subsidies for Wal-Mart workers.

[Ken Jacobs 1]: "We look at what's going to improve wages and benefits - the two avenues are through public policy and through organizing."