Latest KFF Health News Stories
GAO Finds Big Disparities In Prices Of Some Medical Devices
News outlets examine a variety of health workplace issues, including a GAO report on medical device prices and efforts to get health workers vaccinated for the flu.
Shortage Of Primary Care Doctors Raises Concerns
As the administration moves toward implementation of the health law, officials are seeking to bolster the number of primary care doctors. Also, hospitals are concerned about a possible measurement that would grade their efforts on patient safety.
Lawmakers Facing Showdown On Payroll Tax, Medicare Bill
Talks between Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus and House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp over the weekend failed to find a compromise on a bill that would extend the payroll tax cut and avoid a Medicare rate cut for doctors.
Administration Brief Defends Medicaid Expansion
The health law’s expansion of Medicaid coverage is one of the issues the Supreme Court will weigh this spring.
Examining Romney’s ‘Shift’ On Birth Control Mandate, Other Campaign News
Mitt Romney’s conservative credentials on birth control are examined through the lens of a Massachusetts state law similar to the birth control mandate President Obama has proposed. In other campaign news, Rick Santorum continues his “Romneycare” assault, and The Associated Press analyzes how Obama’s birth control compromises affects the campaign.
States’ Medicaid Spending On Target; Feds Deny Further Fla. Medicaid Privatization
A survey says most state Medicaid budgets are on budget through a series of program changes. In the meantime, CMS has denied a Florida proposal to expand Medicaid privatization there.
Mich. Attorney General To Sue Adminstration On Birth Control Rule
While officials at some religious-based hospitals and universities expressed support for the compromise enunciated by President Obama last week, other religious and governmental leaders remained unsatisfied, according to media reports from around the country.
Hospitals: N.Y. Times Finds Aggressive Debt Collection Despite Charity Care Rules
News about the hospital industry from New York, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and California.
Supply of Childhood Leukemia Drug Nearly Exhausted
A medicine to treat children’s leukemia is in such short supply that hospitals may run out within weeks; meanwhile, families of people with Alzheimer’s disease are clamoring to use a skin-cancer drug after a promising study in mice.
CSIS Report Examines Polio Eradication Efforts In Nigeria
This report — titled “The Race to Eradication,” published on Friday by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), and written by Jennifer Cooke, director of the CSIS Africa Program, and Farha Tahir, a program coordinator and research associate in the program — examines efforts to eradicate polio in Nigeria, a country that “remains one of the most entrenched reservoirs of poliovirus in the world,” according to the report summary. CSIS writes on its website, “The Nigerian experience has underscored the complexity of the eradication endeavor and vividly demonstrates the fragility and reversibility of gains made to date” (2/10).
Fair Trade Agreement Between E.U., India Could Impede Access To Medicine For World’s Poor
“Current negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) between the European Union and India are causing serious concern in many quarters over future access to cheap generic medicines used to treat some of the world’s great public health threats: HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and also cancer,” Philippe Douste-Blazy, U.N. special adviser on innovative financing for development and chair of UNITAID, and Denis Broun, executive director of UNITAID, write in this post in the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog.” “Those fears are well founded: if the E.U. and India agree on stringent patent and border measures, India’s role as the ‘pharmacy of the south’ could well come to an end,” they add.
“Sahel states are bracing for a long, potentially deadly hungry season, many weakened by the return of people from Libya who are unemployed, armed and creating fresh strife in already-vulnerable countries,” Agence France-Presse reports. “Crops have failed across a massive swathe of eight countries after late and erratic rains in 2011, and aid agencies have raised the alarm of a food crisis bigger than that which left millions hungry in 2010,” according to the news agency (Blandy, 2/11). In an article examining hunger among children in Mauritania, Inter Press Service writes that “other countries in the Sahel … are affected as well: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and the northern regions of Cameroon, Nigeria and Senegal,” adding, “Twelve million people will soon suffer severe food insecurity and hunger in this region, aid agencies warn” (Palitza, 2/10).
Forbes Examines How Mobile Phones Are Improving Access To Care In Developing World
Mobile phones are improving access to health care in the developing world, according to the series “The Future of mHealth” by Mobiledia, a Forbes contributor. “People in developing nations depend on mobile phones to access health services and prevent disease, as mobile technology creates a platform for improving health care in remote, underserved areas,” the news service writes. The article highlights public health programs in Haiti and Kenya that utilize mobile technology and notes, “Mobile banking is on the rise in the developing world, presenting another opportunity for mobile health to grow.”
WHO Warns Battle Against Leprosy Not Over In Western Pacific Region
“The World Health Organization warned Monday that the battle against the age-old scourge of leprosy is not yet over, with more than 5,000 new cases reported yearly in the Western Pacific, where the disease was declared eliminated in 1991,” the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (2/13). “‘Leprosy is still much alive in the Western Pacific,’ said Shin Young-Soo, WHO regional director,” at a meeting of national leprosy control program managers from the Western Pacific, Deutsche Presse-Agentur/M&C writes, adding, “Policymakers, health workers and the public should not be misled that the disease is totally gone and must continue to fight it, he said.”
Pakistan, Afghanistan Form Joint Action Plan Against Polio
Pakistan and Afghanistan, “the world’s two worst polio-affected countries,” have “decided to form a joint block under the World Health Organization to eradicate the infectious disease — which causes motor paralysis and the atrophy of skeletal muscles, often resulting in permanent physical disability or deformity — by December 2012,” Inter Press Service reports. “The decision was made last year by the Technical Advisory Board (TAG), which is responsible for developing new strategies to wipe out the disease globally,” the news service notes.
Foreign Policy Examines India’s Growing Industry Of Fertility Treatment
Foreign Policy examines “India’s flourishing fertility treatment business,” a multi-billion dollar industry that “has earned India the dubious reputation of being the world’s baby factory.” While “regulation has not kept pace with the proliferation of clinics” and some “facilities have been accused of a litany of shocking abuses,” “[t]he Indian government is gearing up to pass a new law to regulate the fertility business,” the magazine writes. The article focuses on “one pressing issue [that] has remained beyond the purview of regulation: How old is too old to get pregnant?” and discusses post-menopausal aged women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other fertility treatments in order to become pregnant (Chopra, 2/10).
Partnerships, Cooperation Key To Eliminating NTDs
The announcement at the end of January of the largest coordinated effort to fight neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) provides “more reason to hope that we may soon see a future free of these diseases,” Adetokunbo Lucas, former director of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, writes in a Daily Monitor opinion piece. “This new coordinated action will take these previous efforts to a whole new level,” he writes, adding, “Together, these partners have pledged to increase the supply of existing drugs and invest and collaborate on research to accelerate the development of new and better drugs.”
First Edition: February 13, 2012
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations preview President Barack Obama’s budget, which will be released today, and examine the lingering controversy over mandates on contraceptive coverage.
Lew Defends Adminstration On Contraception, McConnell Calls For President To ‘Back Down’
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed a vote on the birth-control requirement while White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew said the compromise is the “right approach.”
Bishops Forcefully Reject Obama’s Contraception Compromise
The Conference of Catholic Bishops said they have “grave moral concerns.” The administration says they never expected an endorsement from the bishops.
