WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

Cook County will not be allowed to shut down a south suburban hospital at the end of the month, after a state board took a second and decisive vote Tuesday to deny the county’s plan to close Oak Forest Hospital and replace it with a regional outpatient center.It took just one person’s vote to knock

The fate of Cook County’s Oak Forest Hospital could be decided Tuesday in Joliet, where the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board will hear an appeal from Cook County today.

Nursing degrees have long been touted as the golden tickets to immediate employment. But recent nursing graduates like Anna Lendabarker are coming into an unexpectedly tight job market.Everyone told Lendabarker a nursing degree would give her lots of choices and let her do whatever she wanted.

Most of the debate about the budget plan passed by House Republicans last month centers on the dramatic changes it would make to the Medicare health program for seniors.

There's no debating that the budget blueprint passed by the U.S.

At age 78, Milton Jones feel like he's earned his Medicare benefits."I imagine so," he says. "I paid taxes all my life."Today, Jones is retired. He volunteers and calls bingo once a week at his local community center. But for 30 years, he worked in Pittsburgh's steel mills."

Sometimes an older and cheaper drug beats the shiny, newer competition by being just as effective for a fraction of the cost.