Latest KFF Health News Stories
Catholic University Ends Birth Control Coverage
A Catholic University in Ohio ends its health plan coverage of birth control, and Texas is planning to apply for federal block grants to free up money to use on its Women’s Health Program, which is closing.
Health Plan Settles Fla. Lawsuits; Minn. HMOs Return $73M To State, Feds
In Florida, a health plan in Tampa will pay $137.5 million to settle lawsuits over Medicare and Medicaid claims, while Earvin “Magic” Johnson plans to invest in a new HIV plan there. In Minnesota, the federal government and the state will split $73 million nonprofit HMOs are returning while other Minnesota health plans profits jump 21 percent.
State Roundup: Feds Deny Hawaii Medicaid Hospital Limit
A selection of state health policy stories from Hawaii, Arizona, Wisconsin, California, Texas, Oregon and New York.
Physician Groups Identify Unnecessary Procedures
The list of 45 tests and procedures was pulled together by nine medical speciality groups to help reduce spending and improve patients’ health.
Quantifying The Health Law’s Medicaid Expansion
The Fiscal Times estimates that the health law’s Medicaid expansion which will offer government coverage to about 15 million low-wage workers and their families.
Federal Court Judge Takes Umbrage At Obama’s Remarks On Judicial Activism
The judge ordered the Justice Department to explain whether Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. believes federal judges have the authority to strike down federal law.
More Must Be Done To Increase Access To Family Planning Services For Women In Rural Areas
“If family planning services, including information about reproductive health, access to birth control, and health care, were available to all women, the deaths of 100,000 women during childbirth could be prevented every year,” Maeve Shearlaw, policy and advocacy coordinator for the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, writes in this post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog. “In other words, access to family planning saves lives,” she writes, adding, “Clearly, more must be done to reach women in rural areas and to increase demand in places where women don’t even know about family planning methods. It is also important to focus on girls and young women, who are more at risk of losing their lives in childbirth — yet simultaneously much less able to reach family planning services” (4/2).
Video: Santorum Still Swinging At Romney About Health Care Record
After his primary victories in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, Mitt Romney attacked President Obama on a variety of social and economic issues, briefly mentioning health care. Meanwhile, challenger Rick Santorum went after Romney by reprising his theme that the former Massachusetts governor would be a weak candidate against Obama on health care.
Study Tracking Progress In Maternal, Child Health Highlights Inequities In Intervention Coverage
According to a study published in the Lancet on Saturday, researchers from the University of Pelotas in Brazil tracking progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 — which promote maternal and child health — “discovered that the most equitable intervention was early initiation of breast feeding, and that the attendance of a skilled person at birth proved to be the least equitable intervention,” Medical News Today reports. “The findings furthermore revealed that community-based interventions were more equally distributed in comparison with those delivered in health facilities,” MNT writes, noting that the “most inequitable countries of the evaluated interventions were Chad, Ethiopia, Laos, Nigeria, Niger and Somalia, followed by India, Madagascar and Pakistan, with the most equitable countries being Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan” (Rattue, 4/2).
National Program In Mauritania Working To End FGM, IPS Reports
“A multi-pronged strategy to end female genital mutilation [FGM] in Mauritania is making gradual progress, though campaigners acknowledge much remains to be done in a country where more than two-thirds of girls suffer excision,” Inter Press Service reports. “The national program, supported by several development partners, includes lobbying for the adoption of a law criminalizing excision, raising awareness of a fatwa (a religious notice) forbidding excision, and the setting up of regional offices to monitor the practice,” according to the news service.
TB Survivors Speak At USAID World TB Day Event
The Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog summarizes an event hosted by USAID in late March to commemorate World Tuberculosis (TB) Day. The blog includes “brief profiles and pictures of some of the survivors featured in the event ‘Voices of TB.'” Andre Gariseb of Namibia, who was cured of TB in 2009, said at the event, “[TB] is a battle for everybody
Jakarta Globe Examines Maternal Mortality In Indonesia
The Jakarta Globe examines maternal mortality in Indonesia, writing, “Indonesia may be progressing slowly and steadily toward fulfilling its targets under the Millennium Development Goals, but the issue of maternal health continues to present many challenges.” According to the newspaper, “Government statistics show that the maternal mortality rate [has] declined,” but “a report last week by health officials in Bali has highlighted a worrying reversal, with the provincial maternal mortality rate increasing from 58 per 100,000 in 2010 to 84 last year.”
Government Of Sweden Announces Sub-Saharan Africa Strategy For HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health
The government of Sweden on Monday announced “a regional strategy for regional efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and address sexual and reproductive health” in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a press release from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. “The strategy also contains guidelines detailing how Sweden will contribute to improving sexual and reproductive health and efforts to improve human rights for homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people” in the region, the press release states. The Swedish government is allocating SEK 700 million ($104 million) for 2012 to 2013 toward the strategy, according to the press release (4/2).
After armed groups in the north of Mali “ransacked government offices, hospitals, hotels, private property as well as the offices and warehouses of aid groups” over the weekend, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) “suspended some activities in the northern and central regions of Mali,” according to a WFP spokesperson, AlertNet reports. “Tuareg-led rebels seeking to carve out an independent state in the north of Mali, and local Islamists, seized the garrison town of Gao, the ancient trading post of Timbuktu and the town of Kidal over the weekend,” the news service writes.
U.N. Reports Increase In Cholera Cases In Haiti As Rains Begin
In a monthly bulletin (.pdf) on the humanitarian response in Haiti, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that an increase of new cholera cases has been recorded in the western and northern parts of the country and “that Haitian health officials recorded 77 new cases a day for the whole country in early March, when the rains began,” the Associated Press/USA Today reports. “The new cholera cases come after a steady decline since June of last year when aid workers saw peaks of more than 1,000 cases on certain days,” the news agency writes.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports that President Barak Obama went on attack against GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and the Republican budget blueprint; that a federal court judge asked for clarifications regarding Obama’s comment on judicial activism and the high court’s consideration of the health law; as well as reports that doctors are stepping into the effort to curb unnecessary medical treatments.
Physicians Wade Into Efforts To Curb Unnecessary Treatments
Nine groups list 45 practices they say are overused and may harm patients.
Hospitals Urge Peers To Ditch Fast Food, Turn Down The Lights
Eleven of the nation’s largest hospital systems –including Kaiser Permanente, HCA Healthcare and Boston-based Partners HealthCare — today called on their industry to be better environmental stewards. The Healthier Hospitals Initiative challenges hospitals to reduce energy use and waste, purchase environmentally friendlier products and serve healthier foods. The effort is as much about reducing health risks and environmental […]
Video: Obama Blasts GOP Medicare, Medicaid Plans
President Barack Obama today attacked the Republican 2013 budget as a “Trojan horse” and “thinly veiled social Darwinism” — and defended the constitutionality of the health law. Watch excerpts from the speech.
Feds Reject Hawaii’s 10-Day Medicaid Hospital Limit
Updated at 4:15 p.m. The Obama administration has rejected Hawaii’s proposal to limit most adult Medicaid recipients to 10 days of hospital coverage per year, which would have been the strictest in the nation. Instead, Hawaii has been approved to implement a 30-day hospital coverage limit starting July 1, state and federal health officials say. […]