Corporate news

North America's two top-paid CEOs in 2010 worked in healthcare, according to the latest pay survey from the research group GMI ratings.

John Hammergen, CEO of the pharmaceutical distributor and technology firm McKesson, made $145 million, according to GMI. Joel Gemunder, CEO of Omnicare — the nation's leading provider of medicines for seniors — made a reported $98 million.

Total realized compensation for CEOs in the S&P 500 rose by a median 36.5 percent in 2010, according to GMI. The report comes as "Occupy" demonstrators are protesting across the country against income inequality and Congress looks for ways to curb healthcare spending.

Walmart wants to lower healthcare costs by becoming "the largest provider of primary healthcare services in the nation," NPR and Kaiser Health News report.

Kaiser Health News takes a deeper look at Mitt Romney's Medicare plan.

Kansas is overhauling its Medicaid program through managed care, reports the Kansas City Star.

A U.S. district judge has appointed a mediator to quickly resolve outstanding lawsuits over GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia diabetes drug after the company agreed to pay $3 billion to resolve claims of illegal marketing, Bloomberg reports.

The American Academy of Pain Management says patients' medicine cabinets main source of opioid deaths.

The British drug company GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay $3 billion to settle U.S. investigations into its sales practices for numerous drugs, The New York Times reports.

The Personhood USA movement accused Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour of being in the pocket of the abortion drug industry after he questioned the wisdom of giving legal rights to fertilized eggs, The Huffington Post reports.

Public Citizen wants federal regulators to use their existing authority to enforce work-hour limits for doctors-in-training.

Hispanic immigrants become less healthy the longer they stay in America, Kaiser Health News reports.

Authorities grappling with Thailand's worst flooding in decades are now facing the potential spread of disease as contaminated waters spread deeper into Bangkok, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Fourteen House members recently sent a bipartisan letter to the Federal Trade Commission objecting to a proposed merger of drug plan administrators, bringing the total of publicly concerned lawmakers to 20 and counting.

The letter, spearheaded by Congressional Community Pharmacy Caucus Co-Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), calls for a "full and thorough investigation" into the proposed merger between pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions — including "the impact that the merger will have on consumers, patients, third party and federal payers."

Separately, the office of Senate Judiciary Antitrust subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) told Bloomberg the senator plans a hearing on the merger next month; the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing last month.

PBMs are third-party administrators of prescription drug programs who act to keep costs low by negotiating low drug prices and getting people on generic versions. Critics of the proposed merger between two of the nation's largest PBMs say it would create a behemoth that would control more than half of specialty pharmaceutical sales for cancer and other complex diseases and close to 60 percent of the mail-order market. 

"On its face," the letter states, "the merger demonstrates the potential for a combined entity to dominate an already heavily concentrated market."

Blue Shield of California announced Thursday that it is giving back almost $300 million to its customers as part of its pledge to limit net income to 2 percent of revenue.

The company made the promise over the summer as rising healthcare costs force more and more employers to drop coverage and raise the political pressure on health plans. The healthcare reform law requires insurers to justify rate increases of more than 10 percent, and more states are also clamping down.

The company has already returned $180 million to offset net income earned above the 2 percent threshold in 2010.

The nation's healthcare workforce continued to grow faster than any other sector of the economy in September, even as the unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 percent, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The healthcare industry added 44,000 jobs, more than one third of the total 103,000 increase in nonfarm employment. Ambulatory healthcare services — such as physicians' offices, dentists and diagnostic labs — gained 26,000 jobs, while hospitals gained another 13,000.

Last month, the healthcare sector added almost 30,000 jobs even as the economy as a whole gained zero new net jobs.

The Labor Department predicts that healthcare will grow faster than any other industry through 2018, largely because of the aging population. 

Part 2 of Kaiser Health News's kids' care series highlights Orlando as an example of the pressure on lawmakers and regulators to approve children's hospitals that might not be needed and might drive up costs.

Did Mitt Romney change his stance on the Massachusetts health law between versions of his book? PolitiFact investigates.

Employer-sponsored coverage declined from 69.3 percent of the nonelderly population in 2000 to 58.7 percent in 2010, according to the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer addressed a healthcare fraud and compliance forum.

A New York Times op-ed calls for a tougher stance against Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), one of the few doctors in Congress, said Watson has "tremendous potential" to improve healthcare.

One of the nation's largest integrated care systems may have put thousands of patients at risk of getting dangerous bloodborne infections including hepatitis and HIV over a five-year period.

The Dean Clinic in Madison, Wis., announced Monday that it is contacting 2,345 patients who may have been put at risk during patient visits. The clinic said in a statement that a former employee "inappropriately" used insulin demonstration pens and finger stick devices during patient training between 2006 and 2011.

The developing scandal potentially weakens a close ally of the Obama administration on healthcare reform. The Dean Clinic has been a longtime proponent of the doctor-hospital collaboratives championed by the healthcare law, and CEO Craig Samitt addressed an Accountable Care Organization panel organized by the Medicare agency in June.

"Dean Clinic is committed to supporting our patients," Samitt said in a statement Monday. "There is nothing more important to us than the health, well-being and safety of the people we serve. Our goal is to ensure that those who may have been affected by the inappropriate use are promptly informed, tested and supported."

The clinic said the problem was discovered during a recent internal review and that state and local health officials have been informed.

At least 25 hospitals have signed up recently for consulting agreements with the Walt Disney Co., reports Kaiser Health News. The goal: Learn how to keep customers happy now that the health law links Medicare payments to patient satisfaction.

Drug abuse and behavioral health problems vary greatly by state, says a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Pharmacies are worried about the proposed merger between Pharmacy Benefit Managers Express Scripts and Medco.