Latest KFF Health News Stories
DOJ Probes Fraud At Parkland Hospital; Texas Group Calls Medicaid ‘Indispensable’
In other state news reports on Medicaid issues, Florida officials seek federal approval for changes in Medically Needy program, and Connecticut House passes budget that would cut $50 million from Medicaid programs.
How Much Muscle Is Behind HHS’ Power To ‘Scrutinize’ Rate Increases?
Politico examines HHS’s ability to protect consumers from “unreasonable” premium increases. Meanwhile, The Hill reports on a study analyzing how many insurance plans should be allowed in state-based health exchanges.
Mass. Senate To Release Plan To Revamp Health Payments
The proposal, which will be formally unveiled today, follows suggested blueprints from the governor and the House on cutting the growth rate of health care costs.
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
State Roundup: Ga. Personal Care Homes In Peril; Texas Vets’ Wait For VA Disability
A selection of health policy stories from around the United States.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including details of the Institute of Medicine report on the nation’s obesity epidemic.
House GOP Bill Cuts Medicaid To Protect Military Spending
The budget plan, developed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R- Wis., targets a number of Obama administration domestic initiatives. It trims an estimated $261 billion in domestic spending over the next decade and undoes elements of the health law.
Senate’s Student Loan Skirmish Will Include Health Law Funding Fight
Although both Democrats and Republicans agree on the idea of extending the current interest rate for student loans, they want to pay for it differently. Democrats would raise Medicare payroll taxes for some high-earning stock holders. Republicans would use health law funds. Pundits predict a showdown.
Former Model, Advocate Christy Turlington Burns Discusses ‘No Mother’s Day’ Advocacy Campaign
In his column, “The Common Good,” Forbes contributor Rahim Kanani interviews “former model, author and advocate for maternal and child health Christy Turlington Burns” regarding “the founding of her organization Every Mother Counts (EMC), lessons she’s learned around advocating for global change, her new campaign, titled ‘No Mother’s Day,’ advice to the class of 2012, and much more.” In the interview, Turlington Burns discusses the motivation behind EMC and her “advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal mortality reduction globally”; highlights her 2010 documentary “No Woman, No Cry”; and encourages others to visit the campaign’s website to find ways to get involved.
Child Death Across Sub-Saharan Africa Declining At Accelerated Rate, Report Shows
“New statistics show that the rate of child death across sub-Saharan Africa is not just in decline — but that decline has massively accelerated, just in the last few years,” Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), writes in the center’s “Global Development: Views from the Center” blog, citing a paper released last week by Gabriel Demombynes and Karina Trommlerova in the Kenya office of the World Bank. Clemens provides “figures for some of the recent changes in rates of child death across the continent” and concludes, “This will be startling news for anyone who still thinks sub-Saharan Africa is mired in unending poverty and death” (5/4).
To Ensure Its Leading Role, WHO Must Address Challenges Of Governance, Financing
“The World Health Organization (WHO) is facing an unprecedented crisis that threatens its position as the premier international health agency. To ensure its leading role, it must rethink its internal governance and revamp its financing mechanisms,” Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore and former director of research policy and cooperation at the WHO, and Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, write in this Nature Medicine opinion piece. They note that the WHO “was born in the bifurcated Cold War world in 1948, and every aspect of its charter, mission and organizational structure was molded by diplomatic tensions between NATO and the USSR,” but “with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of the new emerging market superpowers, the WHO finds itself trying to straddle a global dynamic for which it was not designed.”
Option For Couples To Test Together, Access ART For Prevention Can Reduce HIV Risk
“If we don’t leverage the power of innovation to transform how health services are provided and utilized, efforts to stop new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths can reach a stalemate,” UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe writes in this opinion piece in the Huffington Post’s “Healthy Living” blog. “Many of the advances in HIV prevention and treatment have come through innovation and applying knowledge in new ways,” he continues, highlighting the protective benefits of male circumcision and the introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people living with HIV.
Public-Private Partnership Pilot Program Could Facilitate Drug Development For Neglected Diseases
The National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a pilot program under which “three pharmaceutical companies have agreed to make dozens of their failed compounds available to researchers, who will investigate if the compounds can be re-purposed into successful treatments for other diseases,” Ashley Bennett, senior policy associate at the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in the group’s “Breakthroughs” blog. “With this new therapeutics program, NIH and NCATS have created an exciting, innovative model for collaboration between the public and private sectors. … Now NCATS must ensure that research for neglected diseases is encouraged and supported through this initiative,” Bennett says (5/7).
USAID Committed To Improving Lives Of Children Affected By HIV/AIDS
“Despite many gains in the fight against AIDS, children still lag far behind adults in access to important medical services, including HIV prevention, care, and treatment,” Jen Pollakusky, communications analyst at USAID’s Bureau of Global Health Office of HIV/AIDS, writes in USAID’s “IMPACTblog,” noting that Monday marked the 10th anniversary of World AIDS Orphan Day. “By partnering with national governments, communities, and other organizations, USAID is committed to improving the lives of children orphaned and made vulnerable by AIDS — a critical step in the path to achieving an AIDS-free generation,” she writes, adding “we need to step-up our early intervention efforts for children under five years old” and “work with families to help them become more economically stable so they can access essential services and better provide for their children” (5/7).
AllAfrica.com Interviews International President Of MSF
In a “wide-ranging,” two-part interview with AllAfrica.com, Unni Karunakara, the international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), “spoke about the values that underpin the work of MSF, the organization’s culture and its passion for principled humanitarian action,” the news service writes. “Humanitarian aid has come a long way in the last 40 years, says … Karunakara, but he warns that important health care gains made in the last decade may be reversed if funding is not maintained,” the news service notes. In part one of the interview, Karunakara discusses “gains made in reducing medicine costs and providing treatment for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria,” as well as “the challenges MSF faces in remaining independent and principled in conflict situations.” In part two of the interview, “he looks at the future of MSF in a changing world” (Valentine, 5/7).
Report Notes Rise In Obesity Slowing, But Still Huge Health, Cost Problem
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and Institute of Medicine are focusing on the country’s high rate of obesity – which is projected to rise to 42% of the U.S. over the next 10 years
Huffington Post’s ‘Global Motherhood’ Section Features Opinion Pieces Leading Up To Mother’s Day
Leading up to Mother’s Day on May 13, the Huffington Post’s “Global Motherhood” section, in partnership with Mothers Day Every Day, an initiative of the White Ribbon Alliance and CARE, is publishing opinion pieces from a diverse group of people. The following are summaries of two of those opinion pieces.
Voters had more confidence in how GOP challenger Mitt Romney would handle the economy. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum, who previously had been a candidate in the Republican presidential primary, offered a late-night e-mail endorsement to Romney.
New York Times Examines Cuba’s Sanitarium Network For People Living With HIV
The New York Times examines the Cuban network of sanitariums created to house and treat people living with HIV, “to keep the infected from having sex with anyone uninfected and to help them die comfortably.” Inside the facilities, patients received food, their former salaries, and care, but they could only leave with escorts, the newspaper notes. According to the New York Times, the sanitariums “were harshly criticized — Dr. Jonathan Mann, the first AIDS director at the World Health Organization, called them ‘pretty prisons’ — but they had a huge damping effect on the early epidemic. Fewer than 150 new cases were detected in the country each year through 1990.”
Bloomberg Markets magazine in its June issue examines microbes that incorporate the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1, or NDM-1, gene, making them resistant to nearly all available antibiotics. The article focuses on India, where the gene is thought to have developed due to the widespread and uncontrolled use of antibiotics, but notes that cases of NDM-1 antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been documented in Canada, France, Italy, Kosovo, and South Africa, without patients having traveled to India. Bloomberg describes how the gene was discovered and named; how NDM-1 is affecting India’s medical tourism industry; what the Indian government and health officials in the country and elsewhere are doing to fight multidrug-resistant bacteria; and how NDM-1 is spreading through the water and possibly food supply in India. “The number of countries reporting NDM-1 will continue to grow as more bacteria pick up the gene and people transport it around the globe,” Bloomberg writes (Gale/Narayan, 5/7).
