Latest KFF Health News Stories
First Edition: November 28, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about President Barack Obama’s pick to succeed Donald Berwick as chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as well as news about the Supreme Court’s consideration of the health law and more on the nation’s budget.
AP: Health Law Cuts Seniors’ Doughnut Hole Expenses 40%
Medicare actuary’s numbers show that the provision to close the doughnut hole — in which seniors must pay all their prescription costs — reduces average costs from $1,504 to $901.
Lobbying Push To Focus On Health Law’s Day At The Supreme Court
The Hill reports on the lobbying blitz expected on the case. Meanwhile, AP looks at efforts to have Justices Thomas and Kagan recuse themselves.
Drugs Seniors Use Most Often Cause 60K Hospitalizations Annually
A new study finds that diabetes and blood-thinning medicines account for two-thirds of drug-related hospitalizations.
Analysts Wondering About Tavenner’s Prospects For Senate Confirmation
Marilyn Tavenner, nominated by President Obama to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, may or may not have an easier time than her predecessor, Dr. Donald Berwick, for gaining confirmation.
Future Medicare Beneficiaries May Face Benefits Cap; Super Committee Fallout Continues
According to The New York Times, the political parties may be moving toward agreement on Medicare premium support.
Bloomberg examines how a trade agreement being negotiated by leaders of the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries — Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States — could potentially make it more difficult for people in TPP nations to get new generic drugs and may impact U.S.-led global efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS as outlined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a recent speech at the NIH.
Obama Should Announce Scale-Up Of AIDS Treatment Programs
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent speech calling for an “AIDS-free generation” through the use of multiple prevention strategies, including more widespread antiretroviral therapy, “was a dramatic reversal of U.S. policy, which has historically viewed treatment more as a costly expense rather than our most powerful prevention investment,” physician Loretta Ciraldo and Katrina Ciraldo, a student at Boston University School of Medicine, write in this Miami Herald opinion piece.
UNICEF Report Says More Than 30M Children In East Asia, Pacific Lack Essential Services
“More than 30 million children in seven countries in East Asia and the Pacific are deprived of at least one essential service such as basic health care, safe drinking water or access to education, according to a United Nations study (.pdf),” AlertNet reports. According to UNICEF’s “Child Poverty in East Asia and the Pacific: Deprivations and Disparities” report, “more than 13 million of the 93 million children in Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vanuatu and Vietnam suffer from two or more such deprivations.”
Why Foreign Aid Should Matter To GOP Presidential Candidates
“I suggest that GOP presidential candidates apply … personal finance principles to evaluate why foreign aid is worth the investment,” Samuel Worthington, president of InterAction, writes in a CNN opinion piece. He says foreign aid is “like an insurance premium” because it is a small portion of the federal budget but “small cash outlays can prevent major expenses later,” such as investing in food security to prevent famine. Small investments now will help “today’s aid recipients [become] tomorrow’s consumers of American exports,” which helps support domestic jobs, he writes.
High-Tech Information Innovations Sparking Sharing Of Research
An award is offered for sequencing of DNA of centenarians, and a medical journal reaches out to smartphone users.
Study Finds Use Of Retail Clinics Rising
Researchers from the RAND Corporation found a dramatic increase in adults seeking care at clinics in drugs stores and other outlets.
IPS Reports On Child Poverty In Lesotho
“The triple threat of HIV, poverty and food insecurity is increasingly exposing children to abuse, exploitation and other human rights violations” in Lesotho, Inter Press Service reports in an article examining child poverty in the small southern African country. “In the country of 1.8 million, a good 500,000 out of 825,000 boys and girls live under 1.25 dollars a day and without proper shelter, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Almost 40 percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition and are stunted. Both under-five and infant mortality have persistently gone up in the past decade,” IPS writes, adding, “To make matters worse, Lesotho is one of the three countries in the world worst affected by HIV/AIDS. Every fourth Basotho is infected with the virus, leaving a quarter of children orphaned” (Palitza, 11/23).
Examining The Effects Of Trade Rules On Public Health, Access To Medicines
In this post in the Huffington Post’s “Impact” blog, Tido von Schoen-Angerer, executive director of the Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Access to Essential Medicines Campaign, examines the interface between trade rules and public health, discussing the implications of the Doha Declaration on public health since its inception 10 years ago, and addresses the question of how “countries balance the need to protect public health against patent rights that lead to high medicine prices and limited access for people in need.” He notes that the winners of an MSF “ideas contest on the theme of ‘Revising TRIPS for Public Health'” will present their ideas at a conference in Geneva next month, concluding, “I hope the winning ideas can generate some discussion and look towards affecting change, so that the next decade sees us moving towards more access to medicines for those who need them most” (11/22).
Guardian International Development Journalism Competition Results Posted
The Guardian this week posted the results of its 2011 International Development Journalism Competition. “Sixteen finalists — eight amateur, eight professional — were sent to the developing world to write a feature on a theme suggested by the non-governmental organization that hosted their trip,” the newspaper notes. Many of the themes are health-related, including fighting malaria in Ghana, improving medical care in India, using insecticide-treated bed nets in Nigeria, access to family planning services in Zambia, and gender-based violence in Haiti (George, 11/22).
Five Ways Pharmaceutical Companies Can Address NTDs
In this Forbes opinion piece, journalist Sarika Bansal examines five ways in which pharmaceutical companies can address neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), including creating cross-sectorial research partnerships for neglected diseases; joining patent pools for neglected diseases; donating drugs for neglected diseases; creating facilities dedicated to neglected disease research; and allowing scientists to work on neglected disease, both formally and informally.
UnitedHealth Buying Medicare Advantage Plan With Chronically Ill Specialty
UnitedHealth will buy XLHealth, of Baltimore, for $2 billion to bolster its Medicare Advantage plans that offer coverage to the underserved and chronically ill.
