Latest KFF Health News Stories
Cigna Launches Ad Campaign For Individual Insurance Consumers
According to this Wall Street Journal article, the ads are viewed as a sign of the health industry’s growing focus on this segment of the marketplace, which is expected to expand significantly as a result of the health overhaul.
ProPublica: Docs Avoid Penalties In Suits Against Device Companies
Despite payments by drug and device companies, none of the more than 75 doctors named as participants were sanctioned.
Disabilities Strain School Resources For Special Needs Children
The Wall Street Journal reports that as budgets tighten, school officials are more aggressively scrutinizing doctors’ diagnoses that call for costly accommodations.
‘Super Committee’ Members Have Received $1.6 million From ‘Bundlers’
These contributions, which have been given over the past year to several members of the panel, come from defense, health care and tax interests.
Feds OK Mich. Request To Reduce Premium Costs For State’s Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan
Other news reports related to health law implementation include the latest on a push by the Department of Health and Human Services for state insurance exchange partnerships, speculation about the measure’s essential benefits rule and efforts on Capitol Hill to block the law’s funding.
Mayo Clinic Recruits Patients In Texas; Ga. Hospitals’ Building Boom
In state hospital news, Dallas Morning News reports on an advertising campaign by Minn.’s Mayo Clinic and two Georgia news organizations report on developments in the industry there.
A selection of opinions and editorials from around the country.
Health Roundup: Minn. Orders Counseling Before Patients Get Long-Term Care
News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues.
First Edition: September 19, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about how Medicare and Medicaid will fare in President Barack Obama’s deficit-reduction plan.
UAW Says New Pact With GM Preserves Health Benefits
The union says the agreement, reached late Friday, includes “significant improvements to health care benefits.” The automaker had said it hoped to make cuts in health costs.
Deficit Panel Moves Deliberations Behind Closed Doors
The 12-member ‘super committee’ held a private meeting Thursday and emerged with few details, though a co-chair acknowledged that their work won’t be easy. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, are signaling the different courses they want to see the panel follow.
House Republicans Launch New Attacks On Health Law Regulations
The medical-loss ratio requirement is one of the prime GOP targets. Democrats responded that Republicans were trying to roll-back key consumer protections. In other health law implementation news, HHS announced new funding for community health centers, and groups interested in setting up health insurance co-ops are seeking certain HHS “tweaks” in the regulations.
Funding For International Family Planning Programs Critical For Reproductive Health Efforts
In an opinion piece in Population Service International’s “Impact” magazine, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) writes, “Unfortunately, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives has empowered extremists with zeal for both broad, haphazard budget cuts and a commitment to rolling back women’s health rights,” adding, “Further reducing or eliminating funding for international family planning and reproductive health programs would mean more unintended pregnancies, more maternal deaths and more children who lose their mothers during childbirth,” as well as “more abortions as fewer women have the ability to control when they become pregnant and how many children they have.” She concludes, “With the global population expected to surpass seven billion, we can only expect that the unmet need for family planning services, which currently exists for an estimated 215 million women globally, will only increase. And unfortunately, so will the health disparities and instability that can result from allowing those needs to go unmet if Congress and the administration do not make this program a priority” (9/15).
Prevention Is Global Health Community’s Greatest Challenge In Fight Against Chronic Diseases
David Watkins, a resident physician in the Department of Medicine and the Internal Medicine Global Health Pathway at the University of Washington, and Jim LoGerfo, a professor of Medicine and Global Health at the university, write in a Seattle Times opinion piece, “A new pandemic has emerged and is beginning to overshadow all others,” adding, “The chronic-disease pandemic will be the ‘face’ of global health in the coming decades … an insidious pandemic for those who are affected, causing slow and subtle declines in health over years.” They write, “In addition to providing cost-effective medicines for hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol, the prevention of cases will be our greatest challenge. Chronic diseases require large public-health interventions and improvements to primary health-care systems” (9/15).
U.N. Expresses Concern Over Flooding In Pakistan; UNICEF Says 2.5M Children Affected
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday expressed concern over widespread flooding in Pakistan and “pledged the United Nations’ continued commitment to supporting the government in its efforts to respond to the humanitarian needs of the more than five million people in the affected areas,” the U.N. News Centre reports. In a statement, Ban said he is “particularly worried about the situation in the southern area of Sindh province where people are in urgent need of food, shelter, safe water and access to health services,” according to the news service.
Congressional Cuts To Global Health R&D Spending Would Hinder Preparations For New Pandemic Threats
The movie “‘Contagion’ is fiction, but truth closely trails behind. It tells an effective story of why we need new vaccines, tests, drugs, and other tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases to address existing and emerging global health threats,” Kaitlin Christenson, coalition director of the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in an opinion piece in The Hill’s “Congress Blog.” She notes the world has “been dealing with multiple new threats” over the past few years, adding, “We will surely face new pandemic threats, and we already face other emerging ones such as dengue fever and drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB).”
Public Health Organizations Fear Industries May Manipulate Outcomes Of U.N. Summit On NCDs
“A group of public health organizations said on Friday they were concerned that industries selling fatty foods, alcohol and cigarettes could hijack a United Nations meeting on how to tackle chronic disease in order to protect their own interests,” Reuters reports. “In a letter to the Lancet medical journal, more than 140 international health organizations and campaign groups said the United Nations should ensure industry lobby groups are not able to manipulate the September 19-20 meeting and its outcome,” writing, “There are clear conflicts for the corporations that contribute to and profit from the sales of alcoholic beverages, foods with high fat, salt, and sugar contents, and tobacco products — all of which are important causes of [non-communicable diseases (NCDs)],” according to the news service (Kelland, 9/15).
Leaders Should Push For More Frontline Health Workers
“Innovation can transform a company, a culture, and even the world. But innovation doesn’t have to come in the form of a gadget. It can come in the form of a smiling neighbor knocking at a family’s door, toting some basic supplies and the skills to address matters of life and death,” Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation writes in a Huffington Post opinion piece.
Plans For New Hospital Outside Detroit Raise Questions
Developments in hospital news also include an analysis of Maryland’s success with rate regulation, the economic power of health care jobs in San Francisco and reports that a Mass. hospital system is launching a health plan.
