Viewpoints: Komen’s Retreat; Romney’s Selected Support Of Medicare Cuts; Heritage Refuses Blame For Individual Mandate
A selection of editorials and opinions on health policy issues from around the country.
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A selection of editorials and opinions on health policy issues from around the country.
A Minneapolis Star Tribune series looks at gaps in information available to consumers on doctor quality and whether the state medical board is responsible to do more.
News outlets report that this kind of status is leading some Medicare beneficiaries to be surprised by the size of hospital bills because, ultimately, the services they received were not classified as inpatient care.
Although administration officials defend the rule and some political strategists see limited political damage, the Catholic Church continues a counterattack.
Louisiana, Iowa and Texas are facing major changes to their mental health systems. In other news, college students and inmates often face obstacles in getting mental health treatment.
In this pair of stories, CQ HealthBeat offers the latest news on the health law's benefts summary rule and one state insurance commissioner's views on essential benefits.
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about the continuing fall out from the Obama administration's birth control rule and the latest on the Komen foundation's efforts to bounce back from the Planned Parenthood funding flap.
Also, Newt Gingrich attacked the Obama administration for the rule, which mandates coverage of birth control in health plans, as Gov. O'Malley, D-Md., defended it.
The prominent breast cancer charity announced Friday in a blog post that it had reversed this decision, which had stirred an outcry.
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp said that using war savings to pay for an overhaul of the Medicare physician payment formula is likely out of the scope of the conference committee's deliberations. In addition, the proposal faces political obstacles.
As backlash grows, Planned Parenthood reports increasing contributions to help cover the lost funding.
This post in KPLU 88.5's "Humanosphere" blog examines how former President Jimmy Carter gave the fight against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) "a good first shove nearly 30 years ago," writing, "Neglected diseases like river blindness, Guinea worm, parasitic (lymphatic) elephantiasis and schistosomiasis have been in Carter's cross hairs since the mid-1980s." The blog adds, "Few would argue that it has been primarily the work of the Carter Center, carrying on the work of the CDC and others, that has brought the horrible parasitic disease Guinea worm so close to eradication today -- from millions of cases in the 1980s down to a little more than a 1,000 last year." The blog also discusses how William Foege, a former CDC official who is responsible for the smallpox vaccination strategy that helped wipe out the disease, was instrumental in bringing Carter and the Gates family into global health (Paulson, 2/1).
"If a Republican becomes president, ... say goodbye to international programs providing birth control to women in desperately poor countries such as Liberia," senior contributing writer Michelle Goldberg writes in this Daily Beast opinion piece. Goldberg notes that birth control has become a "significant issue in the U.S. presidential campaign," writing, "All of the Republican candidates have slammed the administration's refusal to give religious institutions a broad exemption from the mandate that insurance cover family planning."
In California, seven Komen groups ask the national breast cancer group to reverse its funding decision. Others report concerns about community support for future money-raising activities.
"Malaria is killing more people worldwide than previously thought, but the number of deaths has fallen rapidly as efforts to combat the disease have ramped up, according to new research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington" published in the Lancet on Thursday, an IHME press release reports. "More than 1.2 million people died from malaria worldwide in 2010, nearly twice the number found in the most recent comprehensive study of the disease," the press release states (2/2). The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, "used new data and new computer modeling to build a historical database for malaria between 1980 and 2010," BBC News notes (Bowdler, 2/2).
Officials in Providence, R.I., and Iowa propose changes in health benefits. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he'll use health care reserve fund dollars to make up a shortfall.
Reuters offers an analysis based on a recent poll and finds that people, shaken by the difficult economy, worry about the impact of efforts to address the nation's deficit. This concept could lead to Democrats finding traction for their positions on Medicare.
Medicaid coverage is making news in Kansas, Connecticut and Colorado.
A selection of state health policy news from around the U.S.
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