John Stucke

Large insurance companies and medical providers were nonplussed by Thursday’s historic Supreme Court ruling that upheld far-reaching reforms to the nation’s health care system. Premera Blue Cross, the largest private insurer in Eastern Washington, said the mandates requiring insurance coverage and access to care should be applauded, but reforms don’t go far enough to control the rapid rise in medical costs.

Hospitals are struggling to stop a killer. Sepsis, the body’s last resort against infection, is commonly referred to as blood poisoning as the body overreacts to an infection in ways that can shut down organs in a matter of hours.

Deaths from heart disease in Spokane County have continued to plummet in the past 10 years. Cancer is now the leading killer, according to statistics collected by the Spokane Regional Health District.

A Seattle man has sued Gonzaga Prep for failing to protect him from a Catholic priest who he says sexually abused him as a student in the 1960s. The lawsuit filed Thursday also names the Jesuits of the Missouri Province, which employed the priest and sent him to Spokane to recruit students for a religious summer camp.

Washington’s top insurance officials warned last week that undoing federal health care reforms will exacerbate the financial problems tied to growing numbers of uninsured residents. More than 1 million residents now lack health care coverage in the state. The number will grow to 1.1 million in 2013 if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down reform, according to a report released by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler.

Providence Health Care has purchased its second family practice in Spokane Valley as regional clinics continue to consolidate with larger medical systems. By adding Spokane Valley Family Medicine’s eight doctors and 40 staff, Providence Medical Group now has a larger presence in Spokane Valley.

Catholic parishes are contributing $1.5 million toward a broad legal settlement expected to help the church resolve clergy sex abuse claims and avoid the foreclosure of churches and schools. It’s the second settlement in five years that has been billed as ending the bankruptcy of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, which has struggled with more than a decade of scandal.

Nineteen lawsuits against the Morning Star Boys’ Ranch have been settled, part of a larger settlement that’s expected to sew shut all of the outstanding legal issues surrounding the clergy sex abuse problems of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane. The seven years of litigation damaged the reputation of Morning Star and its revered longtime director, the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, who had been affectionately called Father Joe by legions of former ranch residents, Catholic parishioners and supporters.

Erosion on Eastern Washington wheat farms is polluting rivers and streams and needs to be slowed with better farming practices, according to state environmental regulators. The Department of Ecology studied erosion across Spokane and Whitman counties this spring and reported Thursday that chemicals and nutrients used on crops are getting carried into waterways by eroded soils. The pollutants eventually end up in the Spokane and Palouse rivers.

Spokane County’s unemployment rate sat at 8.9 percent in April, according to a report from the Washington State Employment Security Department.

The Spokane region remains in the grips of a stubborn recession even as the Seattle area and other leading cities across the country rev up economic activity and new jobs, said Shaun O’L. Higgins, a marketing executive and consultant who for years has delivered financial outlooks for the Inland Northwest. He provided an unvarnished assessment during a Greater Spokane Incorporated meeting Friday morning of what the past four years brought Spokane: “Since March 2008, we have lost jobs at a rate almost twice the national rate.”

A health insurance plan covering 45,000 people in Washington is being discontinued, after state regulators objected to its limited prescription drug benefit. Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler ruled that health insurers in the state can no longer offer plans that cover only generic drugs. The ruling served to enforce state law.