Latest KFF Health News Stories
South Asia Makes Little Progress In Meeting Maternal, Child Mortality MDGs, U.N. Report Says
“South Asian nations are making the least progress in the Asia-Pacific region on meeting key development goals, which they pledged to achieve by 2015,” Bindu Lohani, vice president for sustainable development at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), said on Friday at the launch of a U.N. progress report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Reuters reports (Bhalla, 2/19). The Asia-Pacific region already has reached the MDG of halving the incidence of poverty, “but still has high levels of hunger as well as child and maternal mortality,” the report said, according to Asian Scientist (2/21).
KFF Webcast Assesses President Obama’s FY 2012 Budget Proposal, Potential Global Health Implications
The Kaiser Family Foundation held a live “In Focus” webcast on Tuesday “to assess President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal and potential implications for global health,” the foundation writes on its website. The webcast features a panel of global health policy experts, moderated by Jen Kates, vice president and director of global health & HIV policy at the foundation, “who analyze the Administration’s proposal and how it compares to current funding levels, what may happen as the budget winds its way through Congress, and the implications for the future of U.S. global health programs,” according to the website, which provides links to the panelists’ biographies (.pdf), the foundation’s Budget Tracker and a fact sheet on U.S. funding for the Global Health Initiative, among other resources (2/22). A post in the Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog provides quotes from panelists Beth Tritter, managing director of the Glover Park Group; Larry Nowels, a consultant with the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign and the ONE Campaign; and Ambassador Mark Dybul, co-director of the Global Health Law Program at Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law (Aziz, 2/21). The Medill School of Journalism’s “Medill on the Hill” also covered the discussion (Morello, 2/21).
Surgical Instruments, CT Pan-Scans Under Scrutiny
iWatch News and Medscape each report on patient safety issues.
A Job Doesn’t Always Solve Health Insurance Difficulties
NPR checks in on a person it has followed for more than a year as she confronts the challenges of finding employment and getting health insurance.
Sustainable Funding Needed To Reduce Burma’s HIV, TB Treatment Gap
“While international attention focuses on Burma, [also known as Myanmar,] a health crisis in the country looms large,” Joe Billiveau, operations manager of Medecins Sans Frontieres’ (MSF) operational center in Amsterdam, writes in this opinion piece in Bangkok’s Nation. He continues, “An estimated 85,000 people infected with HIV in Burma are not receiving life-saving antiretroviral treatment (ART). This is an improvement on previous years, with new momentum in the country to tackle the crisis,” but the cancellation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Round 11 grants “threatens to undo improvements” and prevent the planned scale-up of ART for an additional 46,500 patients and treatment for another 10,000 tuberculosis (TB) patients.
Adoption Of Health IT Still An Uphill Climb
Market Watch reports that a number of health industry officials continue to see challenges in the effort o automate health records. Meanwhile, the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Labor Department have signed an agreement to advance this cause.
Medical Homes Offer Model For Better, Less Expensive Health Care
News outlets explore how emerging models for delivering care, such as patient-centered medical homes and dental therapists, can lead to lower costs and improved access.
States Wage Internal Battles To Fund Mental Health Systems, Overhauls
States are grappling with funding mental health programs: Iowa lawmakers are fighting over how to pay for an overhaul of the system, Kansas’ mental health workforce is dwindling, and Illinois cuts endanger emergency care for the mentally ill.
Dems Schedule Own Contraception Hearing
House Democrats have scheduled their own hearing in response to last week’s all-male panel organized by House Republicans on the Obama administration’s contraception rule. The Democrats have invited a young woman to testify but say that GOP leaders won’t allow them to televise it.
FDA, Pharmaceutical Companies Announce Solution To Cancer Drug Shortage
The medicines, Doxil and methotrexate, are used to treat blood, breast and lung cancers.
Ariz. Advocates Ask For Better Pay For Disabled Caregivers
Arizona patient advocates are asking lawmakers to increase the pay for providers who tend to the severely disabled. In Virginia, a group of older disabled people find a new home.
GOP Presidential Hopefuls Face Off In Two Battleground States
Issues ranging from plans to cap or cut Medicaid spending to voting positions on the Medicare prescription drug program are among the policies being tossed about as candidates jockey for tea party votes and conservative credentials.
Birth Control Mandate, Abortion Draw Lines In Presidential Debate
Increasingly, these are the flashpoint issues on the campaign trail.
State Lawmakers Take Up Contraception Coverage, Abortion Fights
States are taking up the fight over the Obama administration’s contraception coverage mandate with several state legislatures proposing bills of their own to block the mandate. In the meantime, Virginia mulls a bill that would require women to get a sonogram before an abortion, and a federal judge is set to rule on requiring pharmacists there to carry emergency contraception.
State Roundup: Ore. Family Planning Bills Challenged, Texas Managed Care
A selection of health policy stories from California, Pennsylvania, Texas, Delaware, Oregon and Florida.
Officials Debate Whether, How To Set Up Health Exchanges
Lawmakers in Maryland, Nebraska and Kansas consider bills to advance or block the marketplaces. California officials wrestle with the nitty gritty of implementation.
Viewpoints: Real ‘Doc Fix,’ Saint Santorum And Why Supreme Court TV Is ‘A Bad Idea’
A selection of opinions and editorials from around the U.S.
Can Health Law’s Lifetime-Limits Ban Can Be Circumvented?
Politico Pro reports that a guidance released on Friday set off consumer advocates’ alarms on this question. Meanwhile, other news outlets report on the law’s high risk pools and preventive services coverage.
USAID Releases External Evaluation Of President’s Malaria Initiative
USAID on Tuesday released the final report (.pdf) by an external evaluation team of the first five years (FY 2006-FY 2010) of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), which is a major component of the Global Health Initiative (GHI), according to a USAID press release. “PMI leadership agrees with the overall findings and believes that the 10 main recommendations are both relevant and useful for program improvement,” the press release states, noting “[t]he evaluators gave the PMI high marks in effective leadership, good management and participatory processes” (2/21).
USAID Funding Cookstove Initiative In Haiti
In an effort “to establish a sustainable local market and industry for clean cooking solutions in Haiti,” “USAID recently announced an award to Chemonics International to implement the three-year Improved Cooking Technology Project” to “establish a thriving local market — on both the supply and demand sides — as well as a sustainable industry for clean cooking solutions, including Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and more efficient biomass cookstoves,” according to a USAID press release. “USAID’s $7.2 million project in Haiti will support and develop viable for-profit businesses in the production and distribution of improved charcoal cookstoves and LPG stoves” and “reflects [the agency’s] support of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership led by the United Nations Foundation,” the press release states (2/21).
