Latest KFF Health News Stories
States Take Different Actions In Plans For Implementing Health Overhaul Law
The budget estimate in Indiana for how much the federal health reform law could cost the state is causing political ripples in the state, leading one lawmaker to suggest dropping the program altogether.
Report Examines Vaccine Costs, Access In Low-Income Countries
A recent report (.pdf) by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Oxfam International warns “that the global campaign to vaccinate children in poor countries is being hampered by high prices and is facing an acute funding crisis,” BMJ News reports.
TIME Examines How Charity T-Shirt Project Highlights Foreign Aid Debate
TIME reports on the recent efforts of a “young Florida businessman” who started a project “to collect a million shirts and send them to poor people in Africa.” The project elicited a range of responses from people in the aid world who have been debating “the best and worst ways to deliver charity, or whether to give at all.” The magazine examines these different perspectives.
U.N. Secretary-General Discusses G8, G20 Commitments During Ottawa Visit
On Wednesday, ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed several topics in a “speech warning that leaders of the G8 and G20 countries should not use global economic and financial difficulties as ‘an excuse’ to neglect previous pledges of billions of dollars for the world’s poor
Media Line/All Headline News Examine Agriculture Investment Gap In Middle East
“Arab countries need to invest some $144 billion in agriculture over the next 20 years to meet the food demands of the growing population, an Arab agricultural organization has said,” the Media Line/All Headline News reports in a piece that examines the contributing factors to gaps in food security in the region.
Upcoming Primaries Involve Tough Fights Over Health Votes
Sens. Blanche Lincoln and some other lawmakers are facing still fights to retain their party’s nomination for their own seats as they spend time defending their records and health care positions from the left.
Meanwhile, a Senate panel probes several home therapy companies.
Groups Plead For More Health Funding As Chairman Warns About Cuts To Proposed HHS Budget
The Hill reports that House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said Wednesday that groups pressing for $14 billion more in funding for education, health and labor proposals will likely be disappointed because the budget proposed by the president already faces cuts of about $3.5 billion in those areas.
Minnesota Lawmakers Debate Budget, Medicaid Expansion
State Roundup: Schwarzenegger plan expected to call for dismantling some health care programs; small businesses in Mass. oppose plan to shift children’s developmental costs; Texas prison health services in peril.
New England Journal Offers Perspectives On Health Law
The New England Journal of Medicine dedicates a significant amount of its current issue to research and perspectives on the new health reform law. Authors include Chris Jennings, Jon Kingsdale, Jonathan Gruber, Elliott Fisher and Jack Hadley.
Healthy Retirees Pay More For Health Care Over The Long Term
A new study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that people “who enter retirement in good health are likely to pay more for medical expenses throughout the rest of their life than those who retire after developing a chronic condition,” writes U.S. News & World Report.
White House Says New CBO Estimates Do Not Signify High Health Spending
“The new healthcare law doesn’t include more spending and less deficit reduction than previously reported, an Obama administration official said Wednesday,” The Hill reports.
Studies Explore Geography’s Influence On Medical Practice, Spending
Two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine explore geographic differences in how medicine is practiced, and how much it costs.
Interruptions In ER May Harm Patient Care, Researchers Find
Austrialian study of 40 doctors in hospital emergency department found that doctors are on average interrupted about 7 times an hour and that they spent less time on those tasks after getting back to them.
Federal Officials Say Crackdown On Medicare Fraud Recovers $2.5 Billion
Obama administration announces expanded effort brings more criminal prosecutions and return of government money.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports that some Republican senators are taking aim at President Obama’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Physicians Fret Medicare Cuts; Cancer Patients Face Higher Costs
Physicians are concerned about declining Medicare rates. Meanwhile, a study shows rising costs of imaging for cancer patients.
Justice Department Responds To Health Law’s First Legal Challenge
The department issued a reply to a lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Law Center the day President Obama signed the health reform bill into law.
Two-Thirds Of Child Deaths In 2008 Due To Infectious Diseases, Report Finds
Pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and other infectious diseases account for more than two-thirds of the 8.8 million deaths in 2008 among children under age 5 around the world, according to a Lancet study published on Wednesday, HealthDay News/Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports. The highest numbers of childhood deaths were in Africa (4.2 million) and Southeast Asia (2.39 million), according to the news service (5/11).
