FEATURE
Hospital Billing Varies Wildly, Government Data Shows
May 8, 2013 | New York Times
Data being released for the first time by the government on Wednesday shows that hospitals charge Medicare wildly differing amounts — sometimes 10 to 20 times what Medicare typically reimburses — for the same procedure, raising questions about how hospitals determine prices and why they differ so widely. The data for 3,300 hospitals, released by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, shows wide variations not only regionally but among hospitals in the same area or city.
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Wild Swings in Bills for Medical Treatments Under Scrutiny
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Coursera to Offer Students Free Online Textbooks, with Conditions
May 9, 2013 | Washington Post
First came free online courses. Now come — with a few conditions — free online textbooks. Coursera, a provider of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, from dozens of universities, announced Wednesday a partnership with several publishers to provide portions of certain textbooks free for students to use while they take the courses.
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Biotech Industry Celebrates Monsanto's Supreme Court Victory
May 14, 2013 | St Louis Post Dispatch
Vernon Hugh Bowman, 75, a farmer from southwestern Indiana, thought he had figured out a cheap and legal way to use Monsanto’s genetically engineered soybeans. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled — unanimously — he had not. The court said Bowman violated the biotechnology giant’s patent on soybeans by planting the offspring of those soybeans without permission.
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