Latest KFF Health News Stories
Advocacy Group Messages, Concerns Emerge As Deficit Talks Continue
The drug industry and teaching hospitals are among the health industry sectors that are bracing for hits from the budget deal. Meanwhile, other health care providers are watching and waiting – trying to figure out what might become of their interests as the negotiations go forward. And Democrats and liberal advocates, the staunchest supporters of the health law, fear President Barack Obama could give up too much in the ultimate agreement.
Calif. Hospital System Pays To Settle Celebrity Privacy Case
The complaints were generated between 2005 to 2009, a time during which hospital employees were, in various instances, caught and fired for sneaking looks at celebrity medical records.
State Highlights: Dropped Malpractice Suits; DC Abortion Report
News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues.
Calif. And Colo. Move Forward On Building Exchanges
California Healthline looks at efforts in that state to meld an insurance exchange with an information exchange to help consumers, while Colorado officials set the first meeting of the new exchange board.
Panel Formed By Mondale And Carlson Offers Plan To End Minnesota Shutdown
A political stalemate between Minnesota’s Democratic governor and Republican legislators shows little signs of abating after seven days.
Research Roundup: Doctors Still Take Medicare
This week’s studies come from the Journal of the American Medical Association, Headach: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, Health Affairs, the Archives of Internal Medicine and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
U.N. Report Shows Significant Progress Toward Reaching MDGs, But Mixed Results In Some Areas
Significant progress is being made toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline, but the poorest countries are not progressing as quickly and more must be done to improve health and development outcomes in those nations, according to this year’s MDG report (.pdf), VOA News reports. “Despite the global economic downturn and the food and energy crises, we are on track to meet the MDG targets for poverty-reduction,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said at the launch of the report on Thursday in Geneva (Schlein, 7/7).
More Action To Fight Tobacco Use Needed Worldwide, WHO Report Says
Laws that require graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging impact more than one billion people in 19 countries, but more needs to be done to cut smoking rates worldwide, the WHO said Thursday in its third report on the global tobacco epidemic, Reuters reports (Kelland, 7/7).
U.N. Set To Highlight Challenges Of Growing Global Population
With the global population expected to reach seven billion by October this year, U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin told Inter Press Service that “seven billion represents a challenge, an opportunity and a call to action.”
Guinea Including Nutrition Component For First Time In Agricultural Plan
For the first time, Guinea is including a nutrition component in its agricultural investment strategy, a move that experts “say
Donors Need To Give More To Fight Hunger In East Africa
“[T]he problem is not just assessing the size of the current crisis” of drought and hunger in East Africa, “[i]t is also the fact that the droughts in this region have become an almost annual occurrence,” a Guardian editorial states.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports that budget negotiators are setting their sights on a “grand debt deal” — a concept that is causing some Democrats concern regarding how safety net programs will fare.
Budget Talks Advance; Changes To Medicare, Medicaid On The Table
Touching these safety-net programs would raise the ire of some Democrats, but the concept is being advanced by President Obama as a trade-off for new tax revenues.
Study Finds That Medicaid Coverage Makes A ‘Big Difference’
The study, considered the first of its kind, was conducted by researchers from MIT, Harvard and the state of Oregon and examined the impact of randomly assigning Medicaid insurance to poor Oregonians as part of the state’s expansion of health coverage.
Federal Incentives Not Necessarily Moving Physicians To Adopt Health Information Technology
iWatch news reports on the reasons why doctors are hesitant.
