Morning Breakouts

Latest KFF Health News Stories

Big Employers Work To Weaken Insurance Mandate

Morning Briefing

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Internal Revenue Service, along with two other agencies, is in the midst of figuring out messy questions related to enforcing this health law provision. In other news, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf offers bleak predictions about future prospects of bending the curve for health care costs. He offered some suggestions for possible reductions, including rolling back the health law’s Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies.

Insurance Commissioners Back Away From Broker Bill

Morning Briefing

The measure, which is sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and is currently pending in Congress, would exempt insurance agents’ commissions from the health law’s limits on what companies can view as administrative costs.

Political Fault Lines In Budget Discussion

Morning Briefing

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., appears to be trying to push President Barack Obama in one direction and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is standing firm on Obama’s left. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is taking a go-big-or-go-home position on the need to reach a “grand deal” on entitlement cuts and revenue raisers.

First Edition: July 13, 2011

Morning Briefing

Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including details regarding the next moves in the ongoing budget discussion — including a “last-choice option” proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Kenyan Government Should Do More To Address Alcohol As Public Health Issue

Morning Briefing

“Alcohol abuse is a mammoth public-health problem in Kenya, and the government needs to make drinking more economically painful,” Justin Martin, CLAS-Honors Preceptor of Journalism at the University of Maine and a columnist for Columbia Journalism Review, writes in a Christian Science Monitor opinion piece. Martin notes that “[i]n rural Kenyan villages, it is not uncommon to see more pubs than schools or medical clinics.” He highlights a 2010 government effort to prohibit the sale of alcohol before 5p.m., but concludes, “A more effective measure, though, would be making Kenyan men pay more for their libations when they shuffle into pubs after quitting time” (7/11).

NPR: IPAB Inspires Antipathy Across Party Lines

Morning Briefing

Although most agree that slowing the growth of Medicare spending is key to solving the deficit problem, the health law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board continues to draw criticism.

U.N. Officials Highlight Concern About Humanitarian Situation In East Africa

Morning Briefing

“U.N. officials sounded the alarm Tuesday about a deepening crisis in East Africa, saying they are struggling to cope with the number of people on the move in the region because of the severe drought and continued fighting in Somalia,” the Associated Press reports. “World Food Program Executive Director Josette Sheeran said the drought has left millions hungry, farmers at risk of losing their livelihoods and the lives of hundreds of thousands of children at risk,” the AP writes (7/12).

Budget Talks: Partisan Divisions Become More Entrenched

Morning Briefing

Included in the negotiations are proposals that would trim more than $350 billion from the federal Medicare and Medicaid health programs. Much of that would come from Medicare, where Republicans proposed to squeeze $246 billion in savings by reductions in payments for home health care, as well as increasing co-payments for laboratory services.

Gilead Becomes First Company To License Drugs To Medicines Patent Pool

Morning Briefing

“In the first agreement between a pharmaceutical company and the new international Medicines Patent Pool, Gilead Sciences announced Tuesday that it would license four of its AIDS and hepatitis B drugs to the pool,” the New York Times reports (McNeil, 7/12).

Donors Should Continue To Provide AIDS Funding To China, UNAIDS Head Says

Morning Briefing

Cutting AIDS funding to China will “be a big mistake for a donor and particularly, for anyone who’s invested in China today, … for the simple reason that this funding is a catalytic fund,” UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe told Reuters in an interview on Monday.