Latest KFF Health News Stories
Seeking A Broad Scientific Consensus On Disease Eradication
In a SciDev.Net letter to the editor, Rashid Zargar from the Centre of Research for Development at the University of Kashmir, responds to an editorial published by the news service last week in which editor David Dickson suggested that “focusing on the science and technology required to eliminate a disease, rather than just control it, can pay off.” Zargar writes, “Dickson offers an in-depth perspective on disease eradication, and he is correct in saying that eradication strategies, though important, will be challenging.” However, he adds, “Ecologists may have reservations about the idea of eradicating a disease, which stem from the belief that mechanisms already exist in nature to maintain ecological balance and the co-existence of living organisms.”
Some Experts Question Early Release Of RTS,S Malaria Vaccine Trial Data
Nature News reports on last week’s announcement of preliminary results from a large clinical trial testing the efficacy of GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) RTS,S malaria vaccine, writing that while media coverage of the announcement touted it as a “big breakthrough in the long campaign to create a malaria vaccine,” “several leading vaccine researchers, who are critical of the unusual decision to publish partial trial data, argue that the results raise questions about whether the RTS,S/AS01 candidate vaccine can actually win approval.” According to Nature, low rates of protection suggested by the results and “the frequency of serious adverse events, such as convulsions and meningitis,” have added to speculation about the vaccine.
Feds Make Arrests in $18 Million Medicare And Medicaid Scam
The alleged fraud was based on an “elaborate” prescription drug scheme that invovled a physician, a pharmacist and 15 others and included the recruitment of veterans, homeless people, poor people and the elderly.
Obama Ahead In Campaign Cash Race
The National Journal reports that President Barack Obama is outpacing the GOP candidates in fundraising from the health industry. Meanwhile, in other campaign news, the abortion issue pops up again in the GOP presidential primary race and also in a congressional campaign.
State Spending On Medicaid Skyrockets, Further Straining State Budgets
A 50-state survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that state spending on Medicaid will increase 29 percent this year.
House Votes To Fix Medicaid Glitch
The House easily passed legislation that would fix a Medicaid “glitch” created by the health law that would have allowed up to 3 million middle-class couples earning as much as $64,000 onto the already struggling Medicaid rolls starting in 2014. The House also voted to adjust a definition that determines eligibility for certain health care programs.
“United Nations officials [on Thursday] called for concerted efforts to ensure the world’s fast-growing population has enough food, stressing that global food production will have to double by 2050 when the planet is expected to host one billion inhabitants,” according to the U.N. News Centre. “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that guaranteeing sustainable food and nutrition security for all will require the full engagement of governments and the private sector” and “said he was encouraged by the renewed political interest in food security, including the prominence that is being given to the issue by the Group of 20 of the world’s largest economies,” the news service adds (10/27).
According to a report published earlier this month in Virology Journal by a team at the bioinformatics laboratory of the Centre for Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB) in Lahore, Pakistan, that country is reporting more polio cases than Nigeria, India and Afghanistan — the three other countries where the disease is endemic — combined, SciDev.Net reports. Natural disasters, such as flooding, armed conflict, and poor-quality immunization campaigns have contributed to an increase in cases, according to the report. Elias Durry, senior coordinator for the WHO’s polio eradication effort in Pakistan, said, “WHO is currently monitoring the whole [immunization campaign] and fully supporting Pakistan government as a partner along with organizations like UNICEF,” according to SciDev.Net (Ahmed, 10/28).
Federal Officials Approve Calif. Cuts In Medicaid
Gov. Jerry Brown sought the waiver from the Obama administration to reduce reimbursements to doctors, pharmacies, nursing homes and other providers by 10 percent.
Not Too Early To Consider Funding For, Distribution Of Malaria Vaccine
In this Huffington Post opinion piece, Orin Levine, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University, notes some of the parallels between the development of RTS,S, the experimental malaria vaccine currently being tested in Africa, and the polio vaccine, but he says “there are also some particularly disappointing ways in which the polio and malaria efforts could differ.”
A selection of editorials and op-eds about health care from around the country.
Medicare 2012 Part B Premiums Will Be Lower Than Expected
The Obama administration cheered the news regarding the cost of Part B premiums in part because it could give a political boost to President Barack Obama’s popularity among older voters.
Research Roundup: Medicaid’s Long-Term Care Bill
This week’s reports come from the Archives of Internal Medicine, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Urban Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Bureau Of Economic Research.
NTDs Among America’s Poor Populations Must Be Addressed
“[T]he number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high, … with close to 50 million people living below the poverty line,” Peter Hotez, founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, writes in an Austin-American Statesman opinion piece, adding, “We desperately need a national dialogue about the unique afflictions of the bottom 50 million, paying particular attention to their neglected tropical diseases [NTDs], which represent important stealth reasons trapping them in a vicious cycle of poverty” (10/26).
First Edition: October 28, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about the health law’s public support, the latest on the super committee and news about the cost of Medicare Part B premiums.
Medicare Part B 2012 Premiums Lower Than Projected
Kaiser Health News tracked stories about today’s HHS announcement that premiums for Medicare Part B coverage in 2012 will be $99.90 a month for most beneficiaries, a smaller-than-expected increase over the $96.40 paid this year by a majority of elderly and disabled beneficiaries.
High Court Justices Could Decide Nov. 10 On Health Law Challenges
A closed-door meeting is on the justices’ schedule during which they will review petitions regarding challenges to the health law. Their decision about how – and when – to proceed could be made public as soon as Nov. 14.
Deficit Panel Dems Advance ‘Grand Bargain’ Plan
As Republicans and Democrats on the congressional super committee swapped plans to reduce the federal deficit, the ideas they advanced demonstrated that the parties remain at odds over increasing taxes and making deep spending cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
