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The White House continues to defend its new insurance coverage rule, which requires religiously affiliated nonprofit groups to provide free birth control coverage to women. Also in the news, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is considered to be on the short list for the GOP vice presidential pick, introduced legislation Tuesday that would vastly expand the opt-out ability of religious or faith-based employers.
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, a leading breast-cancer charity, will no longer give money to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer exams or education, it announced Tuesday. The rift comes from the political fight surrounding Planned Parenthood's abortion services.
A New Jersey newspaper explores how medical costs put patients at financial risk. Meanwhile, the NewsHour explores the future of health care, offering alternative scenarios about how policy decisions, political outcomes and technology might play into an individual's health.
A new JAMA study says safety-net ERs wouldn't be at a disadvantage in meeting some pay-for-performance quality measures if they were held to same standard as other hospitals.
Rick Santorum, another GOP presidential hopeful, says the messy Florida campaign caused damage to Republicans and plans to deliver a speech about "Obamacare" and "Romneycare" today in Colorado. The Democratic National Committee hits Mitt Romney on Medicare, and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., offers legislation aimed at Newt Gingrich.
Supporters of a proposed Connecticut health plan for poor adults say it should be implemented soon to help support state efforts to expand coverage under the federal health law in 2014. Also, a report in Wisconsin finds that the Medicaid program will run short of funds over the next year and a half.
The legislation is expected to come up for a vote in the Massachusetts Senate Thursday. In Florida, the legislature killed a bill to take away prescription rights from doctors awaiting trial on pill-trafficking charges.
The Department of Health and Human Services Report, which will be released today, counters negative predictions regarding the impact the 2010 health law would have on the program.
A selection of health policy stories from around the United States.
As the House and Senate conferees continue to hold meetings to reach an agreement to extend the payroll tax break and the Medicare "doc fix," health care interests are offering input into the process and making pleas to ward off what they say would be deep and damaging spending reductions.
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
The February issue of the WHO Bulletin features an editorial on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis; a public health round-up; an article on the health care challenges posed by population aging; a research paper on the systems approach to improving maternal health in the Philippines; and a policy paper on reducing death rates from cyclones in Bangladesh (February 2012).
In this post in the Center for Global Development's (CGD) "Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance" blog, Connie Veillette, director of CGD's rethinking U.S. foreign assistance initiative, highlights two recent posts by CGD's Amanda Glassman and Nandini Oomman on the future of the Global Health Initiative (GHI). She writes, "With the Appropriations Committee weighing in by requiring a status report by mid-February on transitioning GHI to USAID, it is no understatement that the GHI is at an important juncture. Declining budgets for foreign assistance will also require new thinking on where the U.S. provides assistance and for what purpose" (1/31).
"A pilot community program to improve [tuberculosis (TB)] detection in northern Tanzania has shown good results and could be replicated nationwide as the country seeks to improve its TB treatment and prevention systems," IRIN reports. The program, run by Management Sciences for Health with help from PATH and Tanzania's National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Programme and financial support from USAID, "emphasized that TB and HIV treatment must be done 'hand in hand,'" according to IRIN.
"The Global Fund's drive to ensure sustainability and efficiency means that it may not be able to meet its commitments to combat disease, says Laurie Garrett," a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, in Nature's "World View" column. Citing his resignation letter, Garrett discusses the "the political struggle" that led Michel Kazatchkine to step down as executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria last week and writes, "It is a classic battle of titans, pitting urgency against long-term sustainability. ... Kazatchkine essentially conceded victory to the forces for sustainability."
In her "Global Health Blog," Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley speaks with GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty about the year-long efforts to bring together the heads of more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies in a large public-private initiative to control or eliminate neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). "In terms of what should this industry be doing preferentially, it should be making available the drugs which nobody else has for people in these countries who suffer from these diseases ... and we should be committing ourselves to discover more, better drugs for the future, and we're doing that today and we're collaborating with others to make it happen quicker," Witty said (1/31).
"The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has proved to be one of the world's most important and innovative multilateral funding agencies," a Financial Times editorial states. Therefore, "[t]he abrupt reshuffle of top management last week"
The Islamist rebel group al-Shabab has banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from distributing food in southern areas of Somalia under its control, accusing the organization of delivering out-of-date food, the Guardian reports. "The new ban could deal a major blow to aid operations in the dangerous south of the country as the ICRC was one of only a few international agencies still able to operate there after al-Shabab banned 16 other groups last November," the newspaper reports. Famine continues to threaten 250,000 people in the region, according to the Guardian (Chonghaile, 1/31).
"Poor-quality emergency immunization campaigns and low routine polio immunization coverage are helping the polio virus to spread in Chad, with 132 cases reported in 2011 -- five times the number in 2010," IRIN reports. "More commitment is needed across the board, especially from local health authorities, to try to get immunizations right, say aid agencies," the news service adds.
Government health officials in Free State, South Africa, have recalled a lot of 8,700 boxes of condoms that were distributed free of charge at guesthouses, hotels, restaurants, and bars to celebrate the centenary of the African National Congress, BBC News reports (1/30). "The Free State Health Department says it is recalling the estimated 1.35 million condoms as a 'precautionary measure' -- and urged the public not to panic," the BBC notes, adding, "They say they are still investigating claims that the condoms are porous."
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