State Roundup: Health Law Implementation in Alaska, Calif., Mental Health Funding Challenges
A selection of health care stories from Florida, California, Iowa, Alaska, Washington state and Texas.
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A selection of health care stories from Florida, California, Iowa, Alaska, Washington state and Texas.
A selection of opinions and editorials from around the U.S.
A selection of opinions and editorials on the controversy surrounding the administration's regulation mandating insurance coverage for women of birth control.
Advances in technology and surgical improvements have increased demand for the procedure.
Two stories examine Americans' views of government benefits and safety net programs.
President Obama releases his budget plan today, which is already getting its share of Republican detractors.
Meanwhile, insurers react cautiously to Friday's announcement, with the America's Health Insurance Plans trade association expressing concern about the precedent set by the new policy, and Aetna saying more time is needed to study the impact.
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.
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.
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.
The health law's expansion of Medicaid coverage is one of the issues the Supreme Court will weigh this spring.
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.
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.
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.
News about the hospital industry from New York, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and California.
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.
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).
"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).
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."
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