Tagged: Health Care

Can for-profit health insurance companies be trusted to take care of the nation's sickest and most expensive patients?

Many states, under an initiative supported by the Obama administration, are planning to let the companies manage health care for those elderly and disabled people covered by both Medicare and Medicaid.

About 1 in 5 Medicare patients who leave the hospital come back within 30 days. Those return trips cost U.S. taxpayers a lot of money — more than $17 billion a year.

In October, the federal government started cracking down on hospitals, penalizing them if too many of their patients bounce back.

Three years ago, Sara Chapman left a career in mechanical engineering to follow her heart.