Latest KFF Health News Stories
Indonesia’s Infant Mortality Rate Has Declined, But Health Services Must Be Improved, Official Says
UNICEF representative for Indonesia Angela Kearney said at a workshop on household to hospital continuum care on Thursday that although Indonesia’s infant mortality rate showed a downward trend in the past few years, it is still high, Xinhua reports. “Based on a UNICEF global child mortality report, over the past 10 years infant mortality rate declined significantly to 35 out of every 1,000 births in 2011 from 97 out of every 1,000 births in 1991, she said,” according to the news service.
IPS Examines The Issue Of Gender-Based Violence Against Women Fleeing Somalia For Dadaab
Inter Press Service examines the issue of gender-based violence (GBV) against women as they make the journey from their homes in Somalia to Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp in search of food aid and refuge, calling it a “hidden side” of the famine crisis in the Horn of Africa. “So far, only 30 cases of rape were reported between January and July 2011 according to the UNHCR at Dadaab,” IPS writes, adding, “But medical experts at the camp say that this is a small fraction of a huge problem faced by women” because many do not report instances of rape out of fear they will be blamed by family members and rejected from the community (Esipisu, 10/5).
Many Cancer Screenings May Be Unnecessary
Cancer screenings are vastly overused in the U.S., according to an investigation by The Center for Public Integrity and iWatch News.
Cuomo Aides Pressed NYC To Support Medicaid Deal
The Bloomberg administration was reluctant to agree to execute a deal brokered by state officials and a powerful union, The Wall Street Journal reports. In other Medicaid news, Kansas officials describe efforts to revamp its program, and Wisconsin boosts a campaign against fraud.
MedPAC Approves Draft Proposal To Junk Medicare’s Physician Pay Formula
The MedPAC plan, which relies on cuts to provider reimbursements to offset its proposal, has drawn opposition from physician groups and other provider organizations, which argue the approach would impact patients’ access to care.
Huffington Post Profiles UNITAID Chair
The Huffington Post profiles Philippe Douste-Blazy, U.N. under-secretary-general of Innovative Financing for Development and chair of UNITAID, a financing mechanism he conceived in 2004 to help provide medicines for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries. The article discusses Douste-Blazy’s work and background, UNITAID, and other innovative financing schemes (Lines, 10/6).
DfID’s Reduction In Bilateral AIDS Spending May Increase Need For Funding Later
In a letter to the Guardian in response to the news that the U.K. Department for International Development (DfID) plans to cut bilateral aid for HIV/AIDS by nearly one-third, Nathan Ford, medical coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres, writes that the agency’s decision “comes at a critical moment,” after “[v]arious studies published in the past year have shown widespread access to treatment and prevention can dramatically cut HIV/AIDS transmission, and allow for consideration of an end to the epidemic.”
MSF Calls On Brazilian Government To Step Up Production Of Only Drug For Chagas Disease
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has called on the Brazilian government “to ensure its state-owned drug company steps up production of the only drug for Chagas disease, which affects 10 million people in Latin America,” Guardian Health Editor Sarah Boseley writes in her “Global Health Blog” (10/6). “Thousands of people with Chagas disease will go untreated in coming months due to a shortage of benznidazole, the first-line drug used in most endemic countries,” according to a MSF press release and a related article published by the organization. According to the press release, MSF has stopped diagnosing Chagas in Paraguay and has suspended new projects in endemic areas of Bolivia due to the shortage (10/5).
News Highlights: Brewer Defends Request For Exchange Funds
News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues.
A selection of today’s opinions and editorials from around the nation.
Public Perceives Health Law Parts Better Than Whole
Some of the law’s specific provisions draw stronger support than the entire package, but the real key to the measure’s future is increasingly linked to President Barack Obama’s polling numbers.
Health Interests Make Cases To Super Committee
For instance, hospital groups are urging the panel not to reduce bad-debt payments, saying such a step would take a toll on the hospital safety net. Others are asking that entitlements in general and Medicare specifically be protected.
Research Roundup: Health Disparities; Rx Drug Abuse In Medicare Part D
This week’s reports come from Health Affairs, the Government Accountability Office, The Kaiser Family Foundation, the Urban Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Archives of Internal Medicine.
FAO Report Warns Increases In Cereal Production May Not Be Enough To Offset Global Economic Downturn
Worldwide cereal production is expected to increase in 2011-2012, but “there is uncertainty about the improvement’s impact on food security because of the global economic slump and increased risks for recession,” according to a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report released on Thursday, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.
First Edition: October 7, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, reports about what the Institute of Medicine recommends in terms of the criteria and methods the Department of Health and Human Services should follow in developing the health law’s essential benefits package.
Hints Of Progress Emerge From ‘Super Committee’ Deliberations
A top GOP House lawmaker hopes the deficit-cutting panel will focus entirely on health care costs to reach the $1.2 trillion savings target. Meanwhile, in the background, the Wall Street Journal reports that nearly half of all U.S. households receive government benefits, with about 34% getting means-tested assistance such as Medicaid.
CLASS Implementation Oversight Listed In HHS Work Plan
But GOP lawmakers are seeking an actuarial report from the Department of Health and Human Services that may offer insights into this controversial long-term care insurance program’s fiscal viability.
Foreign Affairs Committee Votes To Prohibit U.S. Funding To U.N. Population Fund
The Republican-led House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would prohibit the U.S. government from providing funding to the U.N. Population Fund, an organization “that helps women and children in developing countries with reproductive health and family planning,” Agence France-Presse reports (Cassata, 10/5). “House Republicans say they are pushing the legislation because the fund, known as the UNFPA, is complicit in China’s controversial one-child policy, which enforces abortion and sterilization,” the Huffington Post writes (10/5).
Debt Panel Medicaid Cuts Could Have Major Impact On State Budgets
Also, in other Medicaid news, a Florida official testifies in court that the state system for children has no major problems while criticism grows of plan to turn over the Medicaid program to managed care companies.
Poor Dental Care Leads To Health Problems, Costs
Meanwhile, a survey finds that Americans are open to new options for dental care to help address the high costs and shortage issues.
