By Alex Costello http://www.zwire.com Faced with the unenviable task of closing the largest deficit in New York state history – $13.7 billion for 2009-10 – Gov. David Paterson has created a budget that makes cuts in nearly every category, while increasing some taxes. One of the many items facing dramatic reductions is the state’s Medicaid […]

By Jamie Satterfield http://www.knoxnews.com The legal cure for out-of-state patients suffering malpractice at the hands of interns and residents at Tennessee’s teaching hospitals rests now not with white-jacketed medical professionals but with black-robed judicial power brokers. The state Supreme Court was asked Wednesday to decide a legal principle that has far-reaching implications for the state’s […]

BY GARY S. MIRKIN http://www.newsday.com

By Ted Griggs http://acadiana.medicalnewsinc.com

http://www.stltoday.com The editorial “Trademarking spin” (Dec. 23) discussed judicial reform in Illinois. Changing the judicial selection process isn’t the only way to improve the Illinois court system. For instance, the Illinois legislature protected patients’ access to care by enacting a comprehensive medical lawsuit reform law in 2005. Prior to this, out-of-control litigation in Illinois counties […]

By Luige del Puerto Arizona Capitol Times There is no mistaking the emphasis that can be drawn from the name of a new Arizona Senate committee announced early in December: Healthcare and Medical Liability Reform. Last year, that panel was simply called the Senate Health Committee. For the last several years, the chairwoman of the […]

By Donna Danyluk HOME If you build it, they will come – doctors that is. And once they get here, they won’t want to leave. That’s the thinking behind Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital’s Family Medicine Residency Program. Beginning in June 2009, RVH will become an official teaching site of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of […]

Carol Lloyd http://www.sfgate.com

By MICHAEL McAULIFFE http://www.masslive.com The combination may not yet be lethal, but a shortage of doctors in Massachusetts, coupled with more physicians practicing “defensive medicine” out of fear of being sued, is clouding the state’s landmark health-care reform effort. In a pair of reports, the Massachusetts Medical Society has concluded the shortage of primary-care physicians […]