The charge for a private nursing home room in 2008 dropped about a half percentage point over a year earlier, while the national average for a semi-private bed rose just 1.1%, according to a new national survey released Tuesday.

The nation's governors have appealed to congressional leaders to boost federal Medicaid funding and change tax provisions to help states through the current economic slowdown. In particular, the governors recommended in a letter sent Monday that Congress increase for at least a two-year period a formula that determines matching payments to state Medicaid programs.

State tax revenues have declined steeply in recent months, according to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. These decreases could prompt cuts in programs such as Medicaid, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Medicaid is underfunding state long-term care efforts by $4.2 billion this year, according to a new analysis of Medicaid financing released Wednesday by the American Health Care Association.

Hospitals that serve large groups of the elderly, poor, African-American or female patients tend to be ranked lower than hospitals with healthier, younger clientele under the Medicare pay-for-performance program, according to new research from the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

Sen. Barack Obama (D) recently accused his rival in the presidential race of planning to slice $882 billion from Medicare to fund his healthcare plan. It is a charge Sen. John McCain's (R) camp refutes.

Government spending on Medicaid is expected to reach $674 billion by 2017, with annual spending projected to outpace U.S. economic growth, according to a report released Friday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Healthcare advocacy groups, including the American Health Care Association, have been urging Congress to include additional funds for Medicaid in a second possible stimulus package.

A Florida pilot program designed to give Medicare beneficiaries more choice and control concerning their healthcare plans has led to more confusion than anything else, according to a recent review by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Medicare Part D insurance plan may be wasting billions of dollars on intravenous drug treatments. Because it does not cover many of the drug-related costs of home-care treatment, patients have to go to the hospital, where Medicare ends up spending a lot more, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.