Latest KFF Health News Stories
Conservative Justices Appear Skeptical Of Health Law’s Insurance Mandate
In today’s oral arguments, the individual mandate was the focus of a barrage of tough questions. Kaiser Health News tracked the afternoon’s media coverage of the session.
If It’s Tuesday, It’s The Individual Mandate
In the second day of oral arguments, the Supreme Court will hear extended arguments on whether the federal government can require people to buy health insurance or face a penalty. Known as the “individual mandate,” this provision, which is viewed as the “heart” of the health law, is steeped in politics.
High Court Unlikely To Push Health Law Ruling Into The Future
Based on justices questions’ during the opening day of oral arguments in the challenges to the health law, it appears the court was receptive to arguments by both the federal government and the measure’s opponents that the case should be decided now rather than waiting until after the individual mandate’s penalties for not having health insurance have kicked in.
What Individual Mandate, Other Health Law Rulings May Mean For Americans
News outlets analyze arguments around the individual mandate and what a ruling by the Supreme Court will mean for most Americans. Kaiser Health News looks at changes in the health care industry as a result of the law, and how most of those shifts will continue regardless of what the Court decides.
Insecurity Threatening Success Of West, Central African Mass Polio Vaccination Campaign
Instability and insecurity in some West and Central African nations are threatening the success of a 20-country polio vaccination campaign, which aims to immunize 111.1 million children against the disease, IRIN reports. Ongoing insurgent attacks threaten the campaign in Nigeria, the region’s only polio-endemic country and home to 57.7 million of the children targeted, the news service notes. Parts of Mali, Niger, and Chad also pose security problems for health care workers trying to access children in remote or disputed areas, according to IRIN. “Human error and weak health systems also play an important role in sub-optimal immunization reach,” the news service writes, noting so far, “only Ghana, Cape Verde, Burkina Faso, Gambia, and Togo have achieved the required 90 percent coverage, according to UNICEF” (3/23).
South African Mines Must Have HIV, TB, Workplace Safety Policies To Receive License, Minister Says
Speaking at an event where South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe urged the mining industry to take greater steps to address tuberculosis (TB) and HIV among its employees, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu “announced that mining companies, whose HIV, TB and workplace safety policies are being audited by her department, will have to submit their policies as a prerequisite for renewing their mining licenses,” PlusNews reports. “According to Shabangu, South Africa’s mining sector sees three times as many cases of active TB as the general population,” the news service writes.
As Court Brings Health Overhaul Into Focus, Politicians Pounce
Santorum picks up his criticism of Romney’s efforts in Massachusetts, which set up mandatory health coverage, but the former Massachusetts’ governor continues to assail the federal plan.
Demonstrators Provide Punctuation, Personality To Ongoing Debate
Though events inside the Supreme Court were staid and steeped in the high court’s rules and processes, outside activists converged to argue their positions and to shape public opinion about the health law.
Scott Brown Turns To Olympia Snowe For Help In Appealing To Women Voters
The Massachusetts senator, who has riled some women’s groups for his stand on the Obama administration’s contraception coverage policy, is seeking to raise the profile of women in his campaign.
Study: Insurance Loss Or Acquisition Means More ER Visits
News outlets report on findings published in the latest issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
States Continue Epic Struggle Over What The Health Law Means For Them
Minnesota GOP lawmakers are being criticized by their Democratic governor for how they are trying to create a health insurance exchange. Elsewhere, California insurance rates are increasing as the Supreme Court hears arguments on the health law and a pair of protests targets the health law and unions in Missouri.
State Roundup: Minn. Can Cut Health Care Aide Pay; Ore. CCO Guidelines Released
A selection of state health policy and politics stories from Georgia, Minnesota, Kansas, California, Oregon, Missouri and Pennsylvania.
Poll: Two-Thirds Of Americans Want At Least Part Of Health Law Overturned
News outlets examine polls and public opinion related to the health law and explore how much of a campaign issue it may ultimately turn out to be.
Pakistan’s Draft Bill That Would Punish Parents For Not Vaccinating Children ‘Misses The Mark’
“Eradicating polio and improving the health of millions of children in Pakistan depend quite heavily on assuring that all children have access to life-saving vaccines,” but “[t]he most recent policy prescription from the Pakistani parliament to improve immunization coverage, however, misses the mark, and badly,” Orin Levine, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center, writes in this Huffington Post “World” blog post. “A draft bill being finalized in the Pakistani parliament would require compulsory vaccination of all children, and would introduce tough penalties — including fines and imprisonment — for parents of unvaccinated children,” Levine says. However, supply issues may prevent some parents from being able to vaccinate children, and the threat of punishment may force some to falsify immunization records, he notes.
News sites reflect on the arguments being made before the Supreme Court about the 2010 federal health law.
Legislatures, Governors Contentious On Health Care Issues
In New York and Kansas, health insurance exchanges are under scrutiny.
Opinion Pieces, Blog Posts, Editorial Respond To Nomination Of Jim Yong Kim To Lead World Bank
On Friday, March 23, President Obama nominated Jim Yong Kim, a global health expert and president of Dartmouth College, to be the next president of the World Bank. The following is a summary of several opinion pieces, blog posts, and an editorial published in response to his nomination.
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
World Bank Presidential Nominee Kim Begins 7-Country ‘Listening Tour’ To Promote Candidacy
The White House nominee for president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, on Tuesday begins a seven-country “listening tour” in order “to promote his candidacy with stops in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Treasury Department announced Monday,” Bloomberg Businessweek reports (Crutsinger, 3/26). According to Reuters, “The Treasury Department said Kim will visit Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, New Delhi, Brasilia and Mexico City between March 27 and April 9 to meet heads of state, finance ministers and others to talk about priorities for the World Bank.”
“India’s inadequate government-run tuberculosis [TB] treatment programs and a lack of regulation of the sale of drugs that fight the disease are responsible for the [increasing] number of drug-resistant cases that are difficult to treat,” health advocacy organizations said in India last week, the Associated Press/Huffington Post reports. “India adds an estimated 99,000 cases of drug-resistant TB every year, but only a tiny fraction of those infected receive the proper” six- to nine-month antibiotic regimen, according to the AP. In India, government-run TB treatment programs only provide drugs to patients on alternate days, increasing the likelihood of missed doses, and patients increasingly are turning to private physicians who are unaware of how to treat the disease, Medecins Sans Frontieres in India and other health groups said, the news agency reports. “The Indian government had no response Friday to requests for comment on the activists’ allegations,” the AP writes (Naqvi, 3/23).
