Latest KFF Health News Stories
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about how the Massachusetts health law is playing for Mitt Romney on the campaign trail to Super Tuesday.
Cost Estimates For Health Law’s Subsidies Boosted By $111 Billion
The new estimate, which represents an estimated 30 percent jump for an eight-year period, triggered calls during hearings last week by key House Republicans for the Obama administration to explain the number.
Also in the news, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is experiencing a resurgence, just as President Barack Obama’s approval rating hit its highest point since last May.
“An estimated 910,000 lives were saved globally in six years due to guidelines intended to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS are protected from tuberculosis [TB], the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said today, releasing an updated policy on joint prevention, diagnosis and treatment of both diseases,” the U.N. News Centre reports (3/2). “The number of HIV-positive people screened for TB rose almost 12-fold, from nearly 200,000 in 2005 to more than 2.3 million in 2010, the WHO said, as it released data on the impact of its 2004 guidelines on TB and HIV,” Reuters reports (3/2).
Speaking about two bills concerning Ukraine’s cooperation with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Ukraine Secretary of National Security and Defense Council Andriy Kliuyev said “[t]he epidemics of AIDS and tuberculosis [TB] remain a threat to national security in Ukraine and require redoubled efforts to treat and prevent these diseases,” Interfax reports. Submitted to Ukraine’s parliament by the Cabinet of Ministers, the two bills “propos[e] to exempt from taxes and duties all transactions connected with the use of grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Ukraine,” the news agency notes. “The NSDC secretary said the state should explore every avenue to minimize the sickness rate and create conditions for the treatment and prevention of dangerous diseases, adding that the grants of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are valuable support for Ukraine,” Interfax writes (3/3).
AIDS Advocacy Groups Ask Obama To Reconsider FY13 Budget Request For PEPFAR
“Nine global HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations sent a letter [.pdf] to President Obama Thursday asking him to rethink his fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget recommendation to slash $546 million in funding from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program,” the Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog reports. The groups, which include AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, the HIV Medicine Association, and POZ Magazine, noted the request “recommended funding the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at $1.65 billion — keeping the U.S. on track to reach its three-year commitment of $4 billion by 2013,” but in the letter stated, “[W]e must and we do strongly object to the apparent shoring up of the Global Fund budget request at the expense of the PEPFAR program. … These two programs are synergistic and often provide complementary services to the same communities,” the blog notes (Mazzotta, 3/2).
Blog Summarizes Clinton’s Congressional Testimony On Administration’s FY13 Budget Request
Will McKitterick, a research assistant with the Center for Global Development (CGD), in this “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance” blog post summarizes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “grueling marathon of Congressional committee hearings in defense of the FY2013 international affairs budget request.” The nine hours of hearings “ran the gamut of U.S. priorities in national security and foreign policy,” McKitterick writes, adding, “Congressional leaders seemed alarmed by reductions in global health spending and raised specific concerns over the administration’s ability to meet its commitments to its PEPFAR goal of placing six million people on life-sustaining treatment by 2013. Secretary Clinton assured the committees that cuts would be balanced by consolidating programs, finding efficiencies, improving partners’ capacity, and shifting more responsibilities to host countries” (3/2).
Why have effective, “simple tools such as Medication Assisted Therapy (methadone, buprenorphine) and clean needle-exchange services” — methods that are “very effective in decreasing drug abuse and reducing risk of infection with HIV, hepatitis C and other diseases”
Obama Birth Control Rule Draws Calls For Action In House Of Representatives
CQ HealthBeat reports that at least one House lawmaker is pushing to move a bill that is considered the companion to the Blunt amendment, which would have expanded exemptions to the Obama administration rule and was defeated late last week by the full Senate.
States Cut Birth Control Subsidies; Impact Of Abortion Laws Hard To Ascertain
Reuters reports that states are cutting birth control subsidies, and The Associated Press writes that it’s difficult to gauge what impact anti-abortion laws have on reducing the procedure. In the meantime, these issues are being debated in Arizona and Texas.
IRIN Examines Pilot Project To Increase ORS Coverage For Treatment Of Child Diarrhea
IRIN examines ColaLife — a pilot project set to start in Zambia in September 2012 that will ship single-dose anti-diarrhea kits (ADKs) in crates of Coca-Cola bottles in an effort to increase the coverage of oral rehydration salts (ORS) for the treatment of diarrhea in children in the developing world. “Three-quarters of [diarrhea-related] deaths could be prevented with a simple course of [ORS] combined with zinc tablets, at a cost of just $0.50 per patient,” but, “despite being heavily promoted by the World Health Organization since the 1970s, fewer than 40 percent of child diarrhea cases in developing countries are treated with ORS,” the news service writes.
Health Care A Big Budget Issue For Minn., Va. Lawmakers
Lower health spending because of slower Medicaid enrollment growth is good news for Minnesota’s budget. In Virginia, however, Democrats say a GOP budget doesn’t spend enough on health care.
Vet Groups Sound Alarm That VA’s Mental Health Expansion Is Going Too Slowly
The AP reports that lawmakers and advocates are taking this position.
Survey: Americans Spend More For Health Care Than People In Other Countries
The report from the International Federation of Health Plans found that Americans pay more for physician time, for scans, surgery and drugs than people in other countries.
Viewpoints: Statins And Diabetes; Frightening Tobacco Warnings; The U.S. Dental Crisis
A selection of editorials and opinions on health policy from around the country.
“An alliance of 200 U.S. aid groups has written to the head of the CIA to protest against its use of a doctor to help track Osama bin Laden, linking the agency’s ploy to the polio crisis in Pakistan,” the Guardian reports, noting Pakistan recorded the highest number of polio cases in the world last year. The CIA used a “fake vaccination scheme in the town of Abbottabad … in order to gain entry to the house where it was suspected that the al-Qaida chief was living, and extract DNA samples from his family members,” the newspaper writes. But the plan “provided seeming proof for a widely held belief in Pakistan, fuelled by religious extremists, that polio drops are a western conspiracy to sterilize the population,” according to the Guardian.
“More than 170 [of Zimbabwe’s] parliamentarians from across the political divide have resolved to undergo voluntary counseling and HIV testing in a bid to encourage the grassroots to follow suit,” and “the 150 male members in the 175-member group have also resolved to be circumcised,” a Herald editorial states. “Members of Parliament are regarded as role models whose power of influence in society is immense,” the editorial writes, adding, “And as leaders, their message is readily received particularly if it is coupled by exemplary behavior in the communities they serve.”
Contraceptive Debate Roils On In Editorial Pages
Commentators find fault with both Obama administration and GOP on the issue.
Medicaid: Texas Rule Lowers Pharmacy Presciption Pay; N.H. Gets Grant
In Texas, new Medicaid rules mean pharmacies get paid less for filling prescriptions for Medicaid patients. In New Hampshire, however, a new Medicaid grant will help people with disabilities stay in their homes.
GOP Medicaid Plans Trigger Wariness Among Some Republican Governors
The Hill reports that the budget plan to soon be unveiled by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is likely to take a similar approach to last year’s block grant proposal and is drawing some concerns. Meanwhile, Politico Pro reports on how Medicaid waivers are helping states leverage money to pay for health reform.
