Latest KFF Health News Stories
State Medicaid Programs Scrutinized For Fraud
In Louisiana, Minnesota and elsewhere, officials are cracking down on Medicaid fraud.
Costs, Quality Pose Challenges In Caring For Aging Patients
NPR reports on on the difficulties involved in planning for the costs associated with caring for aging parents. Meanwhile, Kaiser Health News reports on a new poll that finds doctors fall short in caring for seniors.
State Roundup: N.Y. Insurance Settlement Costing Patients?
A selection of health policy news from New York, Kansas, California, Minnesota and around the nation.
Fights Over Abortion Legislation In N.H., Wisconsin
The New Hampshire Senate is expected to weigh a half dozen abortion bills later this week, including one that would cut off taxpayer funding to providers that perform elective abortions, according to media reports. In Wisconsin, meanwhile, some women’s groups and doctors oppose a law that prompted Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to suspend nonsurgical abortions.
Viewpoints: ‘Callous’ House Republicans; Supreme Court’s ‘Core Constitutional Role’
A selection of health policy opinions and editorials from around the United States.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about the long-term financial fitness of Medicare as well as possible scenarios that could play out after the Supreme Court rules on the health law.
Medicare Trustees Project Funding Will Fall Short By 2024
Last year’s report predicted the same timeline for the Medicare trust fund’s insolvency. Kaiser Health News is tracking today’s news coverage.
Politics And Policy: Exploring The GOP’s Health Law Alternatives
The Los Angeles Times reports that the health reform plan embraced by Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney may be “more revolutionary” than the current health law. Also, Reuters examines some of the policies congressional Republicans are considering if the Supreme Court overturns the law.
State Roundup: Mo. Bill Would Outlaw Federal Health Law
A selection of health policy news from New York, Missouri, Texas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Kansas and California.
Assessment Of Sahel Humanitarian Assistance Finds U.S., Partners Learning From Past Crises
In this post in USAID’s “IMPACTblog,” blog administrator Mark Phelan recounts his recent visit to Niger and Mauritania, in Africa’s Sahel region, where he was “assessing nutrition-focused humanitarian assistance.” He writes, “We are indeed facing a crisis, but I am encouraged by what is being done differently, by ways we have applied lessons learned in the Sahel during food crises in 2010 and 2005, though we still have a long way to go.” He concludes, “I am encouraged that we have learned some important lessons from past crises. The U.S., in partnership with other donors, has taken early action in response to early warnings, and together, we are saving lives” (4/20).
Rising Food Prices Affecting Efforts To Reach MDGs For Food, Nutrition, World Bank/IMF Report Says
“Higher global food prices are hampering attempts to hit targets for food and nutrition,” and “rates of child and maternal mortality [a]re still ‘unacceptably high’ — partly as a result of surging commodity prices,” according to the Global Monitoring Report 2012, released by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday in Washington, D.C., the Guardian reports (Elliot, 4/20). The report says rising food prices have affected some countries’ ability to reach certain Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a World Bank/IMF press release notes.
Process Of Reviewing Controversial Experiments For Publication Must Be Streamlined In Future
“We can worry less that a newly created bird flu virus might kill tens or hundreds of millions of people if it escaped from the laboratory,” a New York Times editorial states. “But there is still some residual danger. And we remain appalled at the slipshod way in which this research was authorized despite its potential dangers to public health and national security,” the editorial continues. The editorial provides a recap of the controversy leading up to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity’s recommendation to publish the studies in late March, and writes, “The board’s new verdict is not wholly reassuring.”
CDC Director Calls For ‘Final Push’ To Eradicate Polio
“A ‘final push’ is needed toward eradication of polio worldwide, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said” in an online update on the agency’s polio eradication efforts, United Press International reports. “Polio incidence dropped more than 99 percent since the launch of global polio eradication efforts in 1988 and no polio cases have been reported since January 2011 in India, one of the four remaining endemic countries, a CDC report said,” UPI writes. “‘Nevertheless, poliovirus transmission is ongoing in the other three endemic countries — Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan — and travelers have carried the infection back to 39 previously polio-free countries over the last several years,’ [the update] said,” according to UPI.
U.S. Gives Go-Ahead On Publication Of H5N1 Research; Dutch Regulators Continue To Debate
The U.S. government on Friday formally accepted a recommendation from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) “to publish two controversial studies of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, moving the pair of papers another step closer to publication,” ScienceInsider reports (Malakoff, 4/20). “Groups led by the two scientists — Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin and Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam — engineered the H5N1 virus to be more transmissible between ferrets, mammals whose response to the flu is most like humans,” Bloomberg Businessweek notes. “The research is critical to understanding and detecting bird flu strains, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said [on Friday] in a statement,” Bloomberg writes, noting that the NSABB “recommended in March that Sebelius and Collins approve publication” (Wayne, 4/20).
U.K.’s DfID, USAID, Others Announce Commitments To Improving Water, Sanitation Worldwide
U.K. International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell on Friday “announced a doubling of the U.K.’s effort to provide clean water and sanitation to the world’s poorest countries,” the Guardian reports (Elliot, 4/20). At a High-Level Meeting on Water and Sanitation in Washington, D.C., Mitchell “announced that the U.K., through [the Department for International Development (DfID)], would double the number of people it reached with aid in water, sanitation and hygiene education in the next two years, going from 30 to 60 million people globally by 2015,” according to a UNICEF press release (4/20).
Hearings And Analyses Frame Capitol Hill Budget Fight Over Medicare, Deficit
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are using hearings and analyses to fight over budget proposals that would change Medicare and/or reduce the budget deficit. Among them are Wis. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget outline and North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad’s draft budget.
Kenyan Government Must Review Law On Counterfeit Drugs, High Court Rules
“Kenya’s High Court ruled on Friday that lawmakers must review legislation that could threaten the import of generic drugs, allowing Kenyans to continue accessing affordable medicine,” Reuters reports. In 2009, three people living with HIV filed a lawsuit arguing that the definition of counterfeit drugs in Kenya’s Anti-Counterfeit Bill of 2008 was too broad and “unconstitutional because it threatened access to life-saving generic medicine by confusing generic and fake medicine,” the news agency notes (4/20).
Online Health Record Safeguards May Not Be As Secure As Consumers Hope
The Chicago Tribune reports on the current state of efforts to protect health records and databases.
Former Planned Parenthood Spokesman To Join HHS Public Affairs Shop
Politico reports that the Department of Health and Human Services public affairs offices has hired a former Planned Parenthood spokesman.
Despite Campaign Rhetoric, Medicare Deal May Be Possible
Still, some say Mitt Romney, if elected president, couldn’t deliver on his promise to cut the budget without harming health care programs.
