Latest KFF Health News Stories
Sanders: Dental Care Crisis Is ‘Next Health Problem’ That Needs Attention
A report released Wednesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., noted that more than 47 million people live in places where it is difficult to access dental care.
Bob Kerrey Jumps Into Nebraska Senate Race
The former Nebraska governor and senator made his announcement Wednesday. Democrats view his candidacy as a hopeful development in their efforts to retake the upper chamber, but some pundits say his policy positions – such as his belief that that health law didn’t do enough – might not be popular within his state.
Some Medicaid Patients Denied Coverage If Final Diagnosis Doesn’t Merit ER Care
Some states are not considering the symptoms that brought the patients to the hospital, the doctors charge. In other Medicaid news, Texas is looking at several options for Medicaid reform, Pennsylvania looks at human service program cuts, Wisconsin Democrats seek to stop reductions there and Minnesota officials respond to criticism from Sen. Charles Grassley.
GOP Presidential Candidates Look To Health Policies To Highlight Differences
The New York Times reports that the Republican presidential field is scrambling to create differences among themselves.
Cities, States Balancing Health Costs Amid Continuing Economic Problems
A selection of health policy stories from around the country, including Colorado, California, Kansas and Arizona.
U.S. Panel May Re-Evaluate Bird Flu Research After Scientists Present New Data About Risks To Humans
Speaking at the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM) Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research meeting in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Ron Fouchier, the leader of the team at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands that genetically altered the bird flu virus, making it transmissible between ferrets and “touching off public fears of a pandemic, said … that the virus he created was neither as contagious nor as dangerous as people had been led to believe …, prompt[ing] the United States government to ask that the experiments be re-evaluated by a government advisory panel that recommended in December that certain details of the work be kept secret and not published,” the New York Times reports (Grady, 2/29).
Romney: Blunting Confusion On Support Of Contraception Amendment
The campaign issued a clarification Wednesday after comments made by GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to an Ohio reporter about the contraception-related Senate amendment. Romney’s camp clarified his support for the amendment.
Millions At Risk Of Malnutrition As Horn Of Africa, Sahel Face Dry Seasons
Only weeks after the U.N. declared an end to the famine in Somalia, regional climate scientists meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, at the 30th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum have said preventive measures should be taken to stem the effects of drought that likely will return to Somalia and other parts of the Horn of Africa over the next three months, IRIN reports. USAID’s “FEWS NET said people should expect erratic rain in southern Somalia and southeastern Kenya” and will “be releasing a detailed outlook in the coming weeks,” the news service notes. But “[o]ne of the problems highlighted was the lack of linkage between early warning and early action. ‘There is no framework that allows the trigger of funds when the early warning bell is sounded,’ said one aid worker,” IRIN writes (2/29).
Snowe’s Departure From The Senate Highlights Ever-Shrinking Political Center
Her surprise retirement also underscores what some say is a rift within the GOP between conservatives who demand allegience to bedrock principles and those concerned with courting swing voters.
Viewpoints: Ryan And Medicare; Va. Ultrasound Bill ‘Overreaches’?; NEJM On Patient-Centered Care
A selection of opinions and editorials from around the U.S.
Detailing Health Insurance Coverage Forms – A Health Law Requirement
The Associated Press reports on how consumers can navigate insurance choices while waiting for the more user-friendly summaries called for by the law.
Longer Looks: Romney’s Evolution On Abortion; The Birth Of The HIV Epidemic
This week’s selection of intriguing weekend reading includes articles from Slate, the Los Angeles Times, American Medical News, Salon, Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, BBC and Medscape.
Poll: Democrats Hold Political Advantage on Contraception, Medicare Debates
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s February poll, opinions tracked party affiliation more closely than gender. Meanwhile, the public remains skeptical of the health law.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports that set the stage for the Senate’s scheduled vote on a measure sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that would allow employers and insurers to opt out of provisions in Obama’s health care law to which they object on religious or moral grounds.
South African Researchers Call For New Framework To Help Prioritize Global Mental Health
“For mental health to gain significant attention, and funding from policymakers globally, it is not enough to convince people that it has a high disease burden but also that there are deliverable and cost-effective interventions — according to South African researchers writing in this week’s PLoS Medicine,” a PLoS press release reports, adding, “Mark Tomlinson and Crick Lund from the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health based at the University of Cape Town argue that global mental health must demonstrate its social and economic impact.” According to the press release, the authors “discuss a framework to help understand why some global health initiatives are more successful in generating funding and political priority than others” (2/28).
Blog Examines Use Of Medicine As Weapon Of War
In this post in IntraHealth International’s “Global Health” blog, Editorial Manager Susanna Smith responds to an editorial published in the Lancet earlier this month that “issued a dire warning to the international medical community” about the use of medicine as a weapon of war in Syria, writing, “It is just the latest in a series of reports from across the Middle East on how medical care and medical professionals and facilities are being used to inflict politically motivated violence.” She adds, “The U.N.’s condemnation of this type of violence in Syria specifically is one step in the right direction, but it is high time the international medical community speaks out against the overt violations of medicine’s covenant with society, violations that are clearly a strategic weapon on the part of these political regimes” (2/27).
“The International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) expressed concern Monday over the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Technical Statement on Hormonal Contraceptives and HIV (.pdf) and its accompanying press release,” the Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog reports. “WHO released the statement last week — concluding that women living with HIV or at high risk of HIV can safely continue to use hormonal contraceptives to prevent pregnancy,” the blog writes. According to the blog, “The ICW is pushing for more research on the subject and increased communication to explain the risks involved to potential users of hormonal contraceptives” and “‘urgently’ demanded that the WHO correct the note for media the WHO released along with the technical statement, calling it inconsistent with the findings of the technical review panel” (Mazzotta, 2/28).
Drawing Lessons From Emerging Economies On Increasing Access To Medicines For NTDs
“At present, the prevailing strategy for improving access to medicines for [neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)] is drug donation programs, which, despite providing some of the highest economic returns of public health programs … have uncertain sustainability,” Francesca Holt of St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge and colleagues write in this PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases opinion piece. “Countries in demographic and economic transition are uniquely poised to be leaders in a shift towards a more sustainable, affordable means of providing access to medicines for NTDs,” they add, citing China, India, and Brazil as examples (2/28).
Ugandan Official Expresses Concern Over Rise In TB, Emergence Of Drug-Resistant Strains
In an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Francis Adatu, head of the national leprosy and tuberculosis (TB) program in Uganda, warned that TB “remains a major public health problem” and that multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) has emerged in the country, the news service writes. “‘According to our prevalence survey we found MDR-TB in 1.3 percent among new cases and 12.3 percent among people who have been exposed to drugs or treated over and over again,’ Adatu said,” Xinhua writes, noting that Adatu said treatment for MDR-TB was much more expensive than for drug-susceptible TB.
UnitedHealth Acquisitions Draw Scrutiny
UnitedHealth Group’s acquisition of a Calif. physician group and two Florida health plans are making news, and Maine’s top court sides with regulators’ authority to reject one Anthem’s rate increases there.
