Latest KFF Health News Stories
Brown Unveils Cuts To In-Home Services, Plans For Medi-Cal Managed Care
Gov. Jerry Brown said the changes in social safety net programs are necessary to cope with a budget deficit.
Detailing The Records, Evolution Of GOP Presidential Primary Candidates
Media outlets report on what Rick Santorum did after he left the Senate and what he would have on his to-do list if elected, the continuing “risks” Mitt Romney faces from the left and the right, and on an ethics group that is directing a challenge at Newt Gingrich.
Hospice Company Accused Of Medicare Fraud
News outlets continue to report on a legal complaint filed this week by the Department of Justice, which alleges that AseraCare bilked Medicare out of millions.
Mass. High Court Says State Can’t Bar Legal Immigrants From Health Program
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the commonwealth cannot bar legal immigrants from joining a state health insurance program for residents with lower income. The price tag for covering the 37,400 immigrants who stand to gain coverage is $150 million.
News outlets cover local health policy issues around the country.
Dems Hit GOP Lawmakers On Efforts To Repeal Health Law, ‘Privatize’ Medicare
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has gone on the offensive, criticizing Republicans for focusing on health issues instead of job creation. In related action, House Democrats signaled they would support using Medicare and Medicaid savings only as an offset for other health care provisions in a bill to extend expiring tax breaks and jobless benefits.
Medicaid News: Provider Leaves Wash. State; Lawsuits In Calif., Iowa
Regence BlueShield is leaving Washington’s Medicaid market and several news outlets analyze Medi-Cal lawsuits.
Street News Service/IPS Examine Challenges Of Fighting HIV/AIDS In A Senegalese Prison
Street News Service/Inter Press Service examines how Senegal is addressing HIV/AIDS among prisoners in a Dakar maximum-security facility. “Prisons are high-risk environments for the transmission of the disease, due to the prevalence of hard drugs, violence and sexual relations,” the news service writes and discusses how addressing such issues can present challenges in the majority-Muslim country. “There is no mandatory testing in prison, and for those prisoners who, either knowingly or unknowingly, are living with HIV, the stresses of living in prison — including overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and poor nutrition — mean their health is even more compromised.”
HHS’ New Rules On Electronic Payments Could Benefit Doctors, Hospitals
NPR reports on how efforts to set uniform standards for electronic claims for health care services could pay off.
Some Employers Move To Ban Smokers
USA Today reports that some workplaces are refusing to hire people who test positive for nicotine use.
Viewpoints: Sebelius On Curbing Health Insurance Costs; Forcing The Mentally Ill Into Treatment
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
Research Roundup: New Ethics Guidelines For Doctors; HIV Testing In Teens
Today’s research comes from the Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, George Washington University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Illegal Drug Use May Be Affecting Health, Death Rates Worldwide, Lancet Report Says
“About 200 million people around the world use illegal drugs every year, and that may be taking a toll on health and death rates in various countries, says a report released Thursday in the Lancet,” the Los Angeles Times’ “Booster Shots” blog reports. According to the blog, “[t]he study, part of a series the journal is doing on addiction, offers a plethora of information about [the] use of opioids, amphetamines, cocaine and marijuana worldwide” (Stein, 1/5).
WHO Confirms Bird Flu Cases In Egypt, China
The WHO on Thursday “announced the deaths of two men from H5N1 avian influenza, one from Egypt and another from China whose death was reported earlier in the media,” CIDRAP News reports. Both men are suspected to have contracted the virus from avian sources, although an investigation into the man from China’s exposure to the virus is ongoing, according to news service. “The two infections and deaths push the WHO global H5N1 count to 576 cases and 339 deaths. According to WHO records, the number of H5N1 cases and deaths reported in 2011 so far are modestly higher than 2010 (60 cases versus 48, and 33 deaths versus 24),” CIDRAP writes (Schnirring, 1/5).
Moving FAO Forward With Sights On Hunger Eradication
Jose Graziano da Silva, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, writes in a Huffington Post opinion piece, “My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push towards [achieving the first millennium development goal of halving the proportion of people living in hunger and extreme poverty by 2015], but also to look beyond it, to the final, total eradication of hunger from this planet. Obviously, it is not something that FAO can do alone. It needs a new international mobilization, the support of decision-makers everywhere, and a concerted effort by the entire U.N. family and other development partners.”
Governments Must Rethink Policies Surrounding Biosecurity, Not Resort To Censorship
Author Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in this Foreign Policy opinion piece that the announcement that researchers from Norway and the U.S. have developed a supercontagious variety of bird flu “has highlighted a dilemma: How do you balance the universal mandate for scientific openness against the fear that terrorists or rogue states might follow the researchers’ work — using it as catastrophic cookbooks for global influenza contagion?” She continues, “Along with several older studies that are now garnering fresh attention, [the research] has revealed that the political world is completely unprepared for the synthetic-biology revolution” and notes “there are no consistent, internationally agreed-upon regulations governing synthetic biology, the extraordinarily popular and fruitful 21st-century field of genetic manipulation of microorganisms.”
CBC News Examines Canadian Aid Agencies’, Government’s Roles In Post-Earthquake Haiti
CBC News examines the roles of Canadian humanitarian organizations and the government in helping Haiti rebuild nearly two years after a massive earthquake rocked the country. “Haiti needs long-term solutions, says Nicolas Moyer, a spokesman for the Humanitarian Coalition,” which includes Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Quebec, CARE Canada, Plan Canada and Save the Children, the news service notes.
First Edition: January 6, 2012
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports from the campaign trail and details about how nine states have asked the federal government for more funding to make sure their high-risk pools don’t run out of cash before 2014.
NFIB Seeks To Add Two Plaintiffs To The Health Law SCOTUS Case
The National Federation of Independent Business asked the Supreme Court to add two additional plaintiffs to its health law challenge after the initial plaintiff in the case filed for bankruptcy.
HHS Denies MLR Waiver Requests From Two More States
The Department of Health and Human Services denied requests from Kansas and Oklahoma to allow them to adjust the health law’s medical-loss ratio provisions. That brings to eight the number of states who will not receive such exemptions.
