Latest KFF Health News Stories
Obama And Romney Campaigns Assail The Other’s Budget Plans
Each casts the other’s plans for entitlement programs, such as Medicare, as dangerous.
Delegates At 126th IPU Assembly In Uganda Focus On Child, Maternal Health
“Over 600 parliamentarians from more than 100 countries” met in Kampala, Uganda, this week for the 126th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly, where participants discussed child and maternal health and nutrition, UNICEF reports in a news article. Speaking at the opening session, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said, “The damage [malnutrition] causes to a child’s development is irreversible. … I can’t think of any greater inequity than condemning children, while in the womb, to a loss of their ability, of their right, to live fully
Advice For Getting Coverage For An ER Visit; Accessing Lab Results
In health care marketplace news, outlets examine coverage for emergency room visits and patients’ efforts to get direct lab reports. Also, a new study finds that the health care workforce is continuing to grow.
Md. Passes Health Exchange Legislation; Ore., Mass. Prepare Their Own Reforms
Maryland is moving aggressively to implement health reform as it passes legislation creating health insurance exchanges. In other news, Oregon and Massachusetts officials make plans to overhaul their state-based health care systems, and Washington state’s attorney general is talking positively about the law’s Medicaid expansion after previously criticizing it.
Study Shows Artemisinin-Resistant Malaria Parasite Spreading Along Thai-Myanmar Border
A strain of malaria that is resistant to artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) is spreading along the Thai-Myanmar border and has the potential to spread to Africa if efforts to effectively treat and prevent the disease are not undertaken, according to a study published in the Lancet on Friday, Reuters reports (Lyn, 4/5). Since 2008, patients treated with ACT have been slower to clear the parasite than previously, “[a]nd this precursor to resistance seems to be spreading, despite efforts to carefully use artemisinin (by giving it in combination with other drugs) to avoid the emergence of resistance,” Scientific American writes.
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones used authority, granted under a year-old state law, to call out the rates as unreasonable. In Arizona, Maricopa County raised premiums on hundreds of county workers who either failed a saliva testing for nicotine or refused to take it.
Advisory Panel Urges New Fee On Medigap Plans, Cap On Out-Of-Pocket Costs
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission made recommendations to Congress for changes to the program. It’s not clear if Congress will accept the proposals.
IPS Examines Promotion Of Women’s Rights, Health Through Development Aid
Inter Press Service examines how “[m]any NGOs, U.N. agencies and parliamentarians continue to call on governments around the world to do more for women’s reproductive rights” through development assistance. The article highlights remarks made by Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, at a conference on development aid held in Paris this week, where she said development aid that benefits women can help “a society to grow and develop” and eventually allow nations to become less dependent on aid.
FEWS Network Warns Of ‘Significantly Below Average’ Rainfall During Horn Of Africa Growing Season
“Rain may be ‘significantly’ below average in the Horn of Africa’s main growing season, potentially threatening a region still recovering from famine in 2011, the Famine Early Warning Systems [FEWS] network reported” in a statement (.pdf) on its website on Tuesday, Bloomberg writes. “Rain from March through May in the region, which includes Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, is expected to begin late and amount to only 60 percent to 85 percent of average, the U.S.-funded provider of food-security warnings” said in the statement, according to Bloomberg (Ruitenberg, 4/4). “The report warned of ‘significant impacts on crop production, pasture regeneration, and the replenishment of water resources’ in a region that in 2011 suffered one of its worst drought-related food crises in decades,” IRIN reports (4/5).
Gingrich’s Health Care Consulting Firm Declares Bankruptcy
GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich’s health care consulting company filed for bankruptcy Thursday. The Center for Health Transformation charged up to $200,000 annually to drugmakers, insurers and hospitals for Gingrich’s advice and may have suffered after he stepped down to seek the GOP nomination for president, reports say.
The Mississippi bill, which would require doctors working at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges to a local hospital, passed the House last month and is expected to be signed by the governor. Meanwhile, 32 Republican lawmakers in Arizona received knitted uteruses as part of a national protest against government regulation of women’s health.
Viewpoints: An ‘Easy’ SCOTUS Case?; Is Painkiller Addiction Really An Epidemic?
A selection of opinions and editorials on health care policy from around the country.
Nearly One-Third Of Under 5 Children In Vietnam Are Malnourished, Survey Shows
“Nearly a third of pre-school children in Vietnam suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth, while in urban areas rates of childhood obesity are rising,” according to a report released Thursday by the country’s National Institute of Nutrition, Agence France-Presse reports. The study, based on a survey of more than 37,000 people conducted in 2009 and 2010, showed that more than three million children under the age of five, mainly in poor, rural areas of the country, “were malnourished, underweight or suffered from growth deficiencies,” according to the news agency. Conversely, “[c]hildhood obesity rates have seen a six-fold rise since 2006 and now run at up to 15 percent in wealthier urban areas including the capital Hanoi and southern Ho Chi Minh City, according to the survey,” AFP writes (4/6).
Cost Of Preventive Exams Varies As Much As 700%, Report Finds
The health law seeks to make preventive screening and procedures available to more people, but it could come at a high cost.
“Within five years, for the first time in history, the number of adults 65 and older will exceed the number of children younger than five, the World Health Organization reports,” “which is why the aging global population’s impact on social stability, economic growth and fiscal sustainability should be part of the agenda at next month’s Group of Eight summit,” Michael Hodin, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and executive director of the Global Coalition on Aging, writes in a Washington Post opinion piece. “And yet, the agenda for the G8 summit appears deficient on the topic of how countries can work together to develop policy reforms that would create pathways for healthy, active and productive aging,” he writes, adding, “What’s needed are profound policy changes in health, education and urban living that facilitate an active aging.”
Analysis Examines Potential Global Health Impact Of Obama Administration’s FY13 Budget Request
A new analysis from amfAR (.doc), The Foundation for AIDS Research, “estimates potential human impacts of funding changes [in global health programs] proposed in the President’s fiscal year 2013 budget request when compared to current operating budget levels (fiscal year 2012).” President Obama’s FY 2013 budget request includes a decrease in funding for PEPFAR and an increase in funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, according to the analysis, which concludes, “Taken together, proposed changes in funding for the Global Fund and PEPFAR could lead to significant reductions in lifesaving AIDS treatment delivery, services to orphans and other vulnerable children, prevention of vertical HIV transmission (from mother-to-child) services, and HIV testing services that could otherwise have been delivered with flat funding for PEPFAR” (April 2012).
DOJ Reaffirms Court’s Power To Review Health Law Case But Urges Caution
In response to a demand from a federal appeals court judge, Attorney General Eric Holder says the Supreme Court has the power to review whether the health law is constitutional, but he also urged the court to show “deference.”
Research Roundup: Effects Of Health Exchanges; Improving Provider Performance
This week’s studies come from the Urban Institute, Health Affairs, The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including the Obama administration’s response to a federal court about the Supreme Court’s power.
Questions Emerge After Obama Spars With The Supreme Court
Earlier this week, President Barack Obama made comments that “implicitly” warned the court against overturning the health law. Since then, defenders and critics have weighed in on his words and strategy.
