Latest KFF Health News Stories
Skeptical Justices Ask Tough Questions About The Insurance Mandate
In yesterday’s oral arguments, the grilling aimed at the Obama administration’s lawyer by the court’s conservatives raised the prospect that the law’s centerpiece could be overturned.
Bipartisan Group Of Lawmakers Offers Budget Plan Modeled On Simpson-Bowles
The group of House members has incorporated in a new budget proposal parts of the plan put forward by an Obama-backed deficit reduction commission. The effort is likely to be rejected by the House this week.
State Roundup: Georgia’s Child-Only Insurance Policies; N.Y. Exchange Impasse
A selection of health policy stories from Texas, Missouri, Georgia, California and New York.
High Court’s Medicaid Ruling Could Have Significant Ripple Effects
A ruling against Medicaid could touch a variety of federal statutes and reshape the federal-state legal framework.
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
As the court heads into the final day of arguments on the health law, commentators review the arguments on the individual mandate and look forward to those about Medicaid expansion.
States Offer Mixed Legislative Bag On Abortion, Birth Control
Birth control and abortion legislation are making the rounds at state capitols. An abortion bill in Georgia was stopped Tuesday while Idaho backed away from its own pre-abortion ultrasound bill. Missouri advanced a bill to let some employers opt-out of providing coverage for contraception.
“More than 80 retired top military leaders are calling on Congress to support a strong and effective International Affairs Budget and reiterating how critical this funding is to our national security in a letter [.pdf] released by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s (USGLC) National Security Advisory Council (NSAC),” according to a USGLC press release. “The FY 2013 House Budget Resolution being debated this week represents a 11 percent cut to the International Affairs Budget from current year funding, and Members of Congress should heed the advice of our most respected men and women in uniform on why this funding is so important to our national security,” the press release states (Parker, 3/27).
If Mandate Is Overturned, Obama Could Need Help To Salvage The Health Law
Should the Supreme Court throw out the requirement to carry insurance, the administration might need assistance from Congress or the insurance industry to complete the overhaul.
Recognizing The Importance Of Working Together To Make An Impact On Global Issues
In this post in the Huffington Post’s “Global Motherhood” blog, Robin Smalley, co-founder and international director of mothers2mothers, discusses how partnerships and access to a supportive network of individuals has helped mothers2mothers expand their efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV/AIDS. She notes that an invitation in 2008 to the Skoll World Forum (SWF) on social entrepreneurship, held in Oxford, provided the organization “entree to a new family, one made up of extraordinary individuals running organizations impacting issues ranging from global health to social justice to the environment.” The conference, underway this week, “is a world dedicated to possibilities, where everyone unites to brainstorm ways we can make our planet a little bit better,” she writes.
CDC Director Provides Update On AIDS Epidemic In Anticipation Of AIDS 2012 Conference
In anticipation of the AIDS 2012 conference, to be held in Washington, D.C., from July 22-27, CDC Director Thomas Frieden spoke at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies, where he provided an update on the epidemic in the U.S. and abroad, VOA News reports. Frieden provided statistics on HIV infection and death rates; recounted “trying to treat hundreds of patients in the early days of the epidemic,” before treatment was available; and said that “around the world, … HIV/AIDS remains the biggest infectious disease challenge more than 30 years into the epidemic,” the news service writes.
UNAIDS, NEPAD Sign MoU To Collaborate In Efforts To Fight HIV
UNAIDS and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Agency on Tuesday “signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) calling for strategic collaboration to advance sustainable responses to HIV, health and development across the African continent,” according to a UNAIDS press release. “Under the terms of the agreement, UNAIDS and the NEPAD Agency will work with partners to: support the development of common African positions for the AIDS response, with an emphasis on sustainable financing; address constraints in access to HIV medicines; facilitate policies and partnerships to eliminate new HIV infections in children and improve the health of mothers; enhance country ownership and accountability; and encourage South-South cooperation,” the press release states (3/27).
Malaria Funding Has Helped Prevent Nearly 1M Child Deaths Over Past Decade, Study Finds
The results of a study (.pdf) published in Malaria Journal “suggest that funding for malaria prevention in Africa over the past decade has had a substantial impact on decreasing child deaths due to malaria,” according to the study’s abstract. Between 2001 and 2011, malaria prevention intervention scale-up helped prevent an estimated 842,800 malaria-related child deaths, an 8.2 percent decrease over the period had malaria intervention remained unchanged since 2000. The researchers note that 99 percent of the decline can be attributed to the use of insecticide-treated bednets. “Rapidly achieving and then maintaining universal coverage of these interventions should be an urgent priority for malaria control programs in the future,” the study concludes (Eisele et al., 3/28).
Global Fund’s General Manager Discusses Future Direction, Achievement of Fund In Interview
Gabriel Jaramillo, general manager of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, “has given an interview [.pdf] with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, in which he outlines the direction and achievements to-date in making the Global Fund a more efficient and successful organization,” according to a Global Fund press release. In the interview, Jaramillo “also stresses the importance of continuing the work of the Global Fund in saving lives through greatly improving the grant management processes and strengthening this function inside the organization,” the press release states (3/28).
Ethiopia’s Workplace HIV/AIDS Policy Aims To Help Employers, Employees Nationwide
Ethiopia’s new HIV/AIDS workplace policy, instituted in January by the government in cooperation with the country’s main employees’ and employers’ associations, “is expected to protect job seekers from mandatory HIV tests, while facilitating voluntary counseling and testing and defending the right of employees living with HIV to medical leave or job re-allocation,” PlusNews reports. The policy “provides guidelines for the establishment of an AIDS fund to help employees cope with living with the virus” and “stipulates that employers will make the necessary investments to ensure universal precautions in workplaces to protect employees from HIV infection, and … put in place a post-exposure prophylaxis system for their workforce,” the news service writes. Tadele Yimer, president of the Ethiopian Employers Federation, said, “What we hope [the new policy] will do is bring about an agreed consent and uniform approach among employers to fight HIV/AIDS nationally,” according to PlusNews (3/26).
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including recaps of yesterday’s Supreme Court action related to the constitutionality of the individual mandate, and scene setters for day 3 of the oral arguments, which will tackle issues of severalbility and questions about the health law’s Medicaid expansion.
Pundits Parse Tough Questions By Conservative Justices
The second day of the momentous Supreme Court hearing on President Obama’s health law ended almost exactly at noon. By 12:03, many conservative lawmakers and television commentators who had been in the packed chambers stood on the marble steps outside, saying the health insurance mandate at the heart of the law appeared to be in deep trouble. […]
Transcript: Highlights Of The Lively Arguments At The Supreme Court, Day 2
Here are excerpts of some of the most compelling parts of Tuesday’s oral arguments at the high court.
Hundreds Brave Chilly Weather For Chance To Witness History
With the Supreme Court poised Tuesday to hear arguments about the health law’s mandate requiring most Americans to buy health insurance, about 200 advocates for and against abortion rights marched outside the court on a sunny, but chilly morning. They carried signs saying, “Abortion is not Health Care,” and “Protect the Law.” A few feet […]
Day 2: Justices Grill Obama Administration On Health Law
The second day of the historic hearings on the health reform law focused on this question: Does Congress have the power to require Americans to purchase health insurance? KHN contributor Stuart Taylor, Jr., tells Jackie Judd the conservative justices were especially skeptical, with sometimes-hostile questions.