Latest KFF Health News Stories
Healthcare Becomes Target In Antitrust Reviews
According to the Federal Trade Commission, though the recent rate of antitrust reviews of hospital mergers has been flat, regulators have increasingly been looking at provider deals.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about how the pending Supreme Court decision is being viewed by investors, and the latest from the campaign trail.
Health Care Costs To Reach Nearly One-Fifth Of GDP By 2021
New health care cost projections released Tuesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services indicate that the nation’s health care spending will keep outpacing economic growth for the foreseeable future despite a recent slowdown.
Insurers, Politicians Girding For Supreme Court Health Law Decision
Insurance company executives tell news outlets they support the mandate to buy insurance or pay a fine, as Republicans try to refine their post-SCOTUS decision strategy.
JAMA: Wage Gap Persists For Women Physician-Researchers
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the average salary for women doctor-researchers was 16 percent lower than men, even after accounting for speciality, hours, etc.
Iowa Gov. Wants State Workers To Pay For Part Of Health Care
This pair of stories from the Des Moines Register, based on a meeting with Gov. Terry Branstad, details Branstad’s plans for state employees’ health benefits and efforts to develop a state alternative to the health law.
U.N. Holds Panel Discussion Regarding Strategic AIDS Financing
“Coinciding with the 2012 General Assembly AIDS review, the Permanent Missions of Malawi and Luxembourg to the United Nations and UNAIDS organized a panel discussion to further understand the strategic investments needed for the AIDS response,” a UNAIDS reports in a feature story on its webpage, adding, “The discussion brought together representatives of member states, U.N. organizations and civil society.” According to the story, “UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe stressed the need to focus investments where they can have greater impact”; “[p]anelists agreed that incremental yet bold steps must be taken to close the financing gap by 2015, including greater allocations from domestic and international resources”; and the “UNAIDS Investment Framework was presented as an opportunity for development partners and national governments toward developing a ‘shared responsibility’ agenda and maximizing value for money” (6/12).
Use, Overuse Of Imaging Tests Adds About $100 Billion To U.S. Medical Bills
The use of diagnostic imaging has nearly tripled since the mid-1990s, according to a new study, raising questions about whether the benefits outweigh the risks of increased radiation exposure.
Medicare Advantage Enrollment Goes Up As Premium Costs Decline
A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the enrollment increases were also due in part to seniors’ reduced access to supplemental coverage as well as greater comfort with managed care.
Senate Panel Includes Funding For Implementing Health Law In Spending Bill
GOP members of the Senate appropriations subcommittee opposed the measure.
Romney Sees ‘Consumer’ Health Care In The Post-Health Law Landscape
As the country awaits the health law decision and President Barack Obama appears to be playing down campaign talk about the health law, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney took the opposite approach by offering his vision of health care in America when the law is undone.
Health Law’s Birth Control Mandate, Medicare’s Doughtnut Hole Draw Headlines
Drug manufacturers may abandon the health law’s provisions to close Medicare’s so-called “doughnut hole” if the high court overturns the measure. Also, religious leaders press the Department of Health and Human Services to widen the religious exemption to the health law’s birth control mandate.
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
R.I. Lawmakers Pass Federal Health Care Law Compliance Bill
Rhode Island and Connecticut moved forward on implementing the health law: Lawmakers in Providence approved legislation to bring state health insurance laws in line with the federal health care law. In Connecticut, the health insurance exchange board added a member.
State Roundup: Mass. Bill Seeking Alzheimer’s Care Standards Moves Forward
A selection of health policy stories from Massachusetts, Michigan, California, North Carolina and New York.
CalPERS Readies Nearly 10% Rate Hike; Blue Shield Of Calif. Faces Lawsuit
California’s Public Employees’ Retirement System premium increase is more than twice as large as last year’s. Meanwhile, the lawsuit against Blue Shield alleges that the insurer is seeking to push customers into new options that offer less coverage.
Conn. Children’s Hospital, Insurer Reach Accord; San Francisco Nurses Plan Strike
A handful of articles look at developments at hospitals around the country.
‘Child Survival Call To Action’ Event To Take Place In Washington This Week
“The governments of the United States, India, and Ethiopia will in collaboration with UNICEF convene the Child Survival Call to Action in Washington, D.C.,” a two-day event beginning Thursday, which “brings together 700 leaders and global experts to launch a sustained effort to save children’s lives,” a UNICEF press release reports. The initiative “challenges the world” to reduce child mortality to 20 per 1,000 by 2035 worldwide, the press release states, adding, “Reaching this historic target will have saved an estimated additional 45 million children’s lives between 2010 and 2035, bringing the world closer to the ultimate goal of ending preventable child deaths” (6/12).
“The global market for mobile health [mHealth] products and services is expected to approach $23 billion by 2017, and much of the growth will not happen in the U.S. but rather in less-developed countries, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers [PwC],” MobiHealthNews reports. “PwC ran surveys of health care providers, patients, and payers in Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, India, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S.” and “conducted in-depth interviews with 20 senior health care executives and industry experts,” the news service notes.
Brazilian Researchers Say Schistosomiasis Vaccine Could Be Available In 3 Years
“Brazilian researchers say they have successfully tested a vaccine against schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms that afflicts more than 200 million people worldwide,” Agence France-Presse reports. Researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro “said it had successfully tested the vaccine in humans, but that more testing would be required in areas where the parasite is most common, mainly in Africa and South America,” the news agency writes. Institute researcher Tania Araujo-Jorge said she hopes the vaccine will be available for distribution within three years, according to AFP (6/13).
