Archives: Morning Breakouts

Taking a position that the Obama administration's request for "clarification" regarding a recent ruling on the health law's individual mandate is "wishful thinking," some states maintain the judge meant to stop work on the law's rollout.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, many Americans either believe the health law has been repealed or aren't sure. (KHN is a program of the Foundation.)

Various viewpoints from The Hill, Politico, The Washington Post, the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee and KHN.

As Congress considers legislation to eliminate Planned Parenthood funding, state legislatures are also considering measures related to abortion issues.

While promoting his new book, the former Arkansas governor draws parallels between the Massachusetts' plan and the federal health law, and said Mitt Romney, who was governor when the plan was enacted, should "apologize" for it now.

The controversial issues surrounding unions and collective bargaining agreements are bubbling up in other states as well.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Tuesday "he will attempt to pass a 'clean' one-month stopgap funding measure at current spending levels when the Senate returns next week, in a bid to avoid a government shutdown," CQ reports.

Kicking off the two-week 55th Annual Session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in New York on Tuesday, Michelle Bachelet, the first under-secretary-general and executive director of U.N. Women, highlighted the role of gender equality in country development, peace and security, Angola Press reports (2/23). The commission draws together government officials, U.N. representatives, and members of the private sector and civil society groups, according to a U.N. press release (2/22).

New strategies that ensure developing countries have access to low-cost generic medicines and encourage innovation are needed, according to experts who attended a recent meeting sponsored by the WHO, World Intellectual Property Organization, and World Trade Organization (WTO) that addressed growing concern that strict intellectual property protections are limiting access to low-cost generic medicines, BMJ News reports.

Recent media reports have drawn attention to an internal audit that revealed several countries' misuse of Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grant money, totaling $34 million. The Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report's Jennifer Evans spoke with Bill Savedoff, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, to help put the audit's findings into context and discuss the fund's response to corruption. Savedoff recently co-authored the book, "Anticorruption in the Health Sector: Strategies for Transparency and Accountability."

UNICEF said that Myanmar is planning a mass polio vaccination campaign of children under age five after the country confirmed its first case of the disease in three years, Agence France-Presse reports (2/21). "A seven-month-old infant was infected with vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) in December," according to UNICEF's office in the country, IRIN writes (2/17).

With a shutdown looming, the cuts included in the continuing resolution that would fund the federal government for the current fiscal year offer insights into what Republicans view as the measure's soft spots. Still, Dems are holding the line.