Latest KFF Health News Stories
State Roundup: Uninsured Not The Usual Suspects In Texas, Calif.
A selection of health care news from Texas, California, New York, Maine, Maryland, Georgia and Virginia.
Doctors Press Boehner To Stop Mandated Insurance Code Switch
The American Medical Association opposes implementation of the coding system known as ICD-10, saying it would require physician offices to deal with an estimated 68,000 insurance codes — five times more than the current 13,000.
The Political Implications Of The Wyden-Ryan Plan
Politico reports on the continuing Medicare policy collaboration between Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Paul Ryan, D-Wis.
CMS Officials Focus On Health Care Innovation
At yesterday’s ‘Summit,’ officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services advanced the notion that finding new ways to improve quality of care is also the best way to address high health care costs.
House GOP Waits For High Court To Decide Individual Mandate Issue
Part of the rationale for not addressing the provision in the Republican repeal strategy is to avoid giving the Supreme Court justices a reason not to strike it down.
Research: Families In High Deductible Plans More Likely To Delay Care
This week’s studies come from the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Health Affairs, the Archives of Internal Medicine, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Avelere Health and the Government Accountability Office.
Two Initiatives Launched At WEF With Aim Of Ending New HIV Infections Among Children By 2015
“Two groundbreaking initiatives, aimed at realistically achieving the once-unthinkable goal of ending new HIV infections among children by the end of 2015, were launched simultaneously at the World Economic Forum’s [WEF] Annual Conference in Davos” on Friday, according to a Business Leadership Council press release. “The Business Leadership Council for a Generation Born HIV Free was launched together with a Social Media Syndicate that is designed to reach billions of people around the world … The Syndicate will evolve to focus on other U.N. Health Millennium Development Goals over the coming months,” the press release states (1/27). “The Social Media Syndicate will coordinate the most influential, individual publishers on the Social Web to share messages and actions needed to welcome a ‘Generation Born HIV Free’ and to achieve all the health-related Millennium Development Goals,” according to a press statement from UNAIDS and PEPFAR (1/27).
Access To, Use Of Sanitation Systems Cuts Odds Of Worm Infection In Half, Study Review Shows
When sanitation systems are available and used, the odds of contracting one of a group of diseases, known as soil-transmitted helminths (STH), is cut in half, according to a systemic review and meta-analysis published this week in PLoS Medicine, Examiner.com reports (Herriman, 1/25). “One billion of the world’s people experience a diminished ability to work, learn, and thrive as a result of infection by these parasites — roundworm, whipworm, and hookworm. The resulting losses in quality of life and productivity can trap people in a cycle of poverty and stigma and diminish their ability to care for themselves and their families,” the PLoS “Speaking of Medicine” blog writes.
Ban Calls On Business Leaders To Increase Investment In Women’s Education, Health At WEF
Speaking at an event organized by the Every Woman Every Child initiative on Thursday, “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [called on] business leaders attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, to increase their investment in women’s education and health to ensure their well-being and encourage their participation in the world economy,” the U.N. News Centre reports. “‘The business community can help. Your partnership is crucial in preventing unnecessary suffering for women and girls everywhere,’ Mr. Ban said, adding that despite recent progress, much remains to be done,” the news service notes.
Access To Food Must Be Considered In Talks Focused On Global Financial Crisis, WEF Participants Say
Business and political leaders meeting in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Thursday agreed that the focus on the global financial crisis “won’t matter unless people have one basic thing: Enough food to eat,” the Associated Press reports. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) “estimates there are at least 925 million undernourished people in the world — almost one in seven,” the AP notes. FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said, “The problem is not the supply side. … The problem is the access — they don’t have the money to buy it or they don’t have the water and land they need if they are subsistence farmers,” according to the news service (Heilprin, 1/26).
India’s Proposed Food Security Act Would Help But Not Solve Country’s Food Insecurity
In this Al Jazeera opinion piece, Stan Cox, a senior scientist at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, reports on a proposed Food Security Act in India and examines whether the measure could help solve the country’s food insecurity. He writes, “So-called public food distribution systems (PDS) have operated for years in dozens of countries around the globe,” and notes, “India’s PDS has been selling subsidized food through ‘fair price shops’ on a national basis since the 1970s.” He continues, “The Food Security Act would increase the amount of grain going through the system by more than 75 percent. That would raise the total to 66 million tons, or more than one third of India’s entire grain production.”
Global Health Frontline News Examines Clean Cookstove Efforts In Tanzania
Global Health Frontline News (GHFN) reports on efforts to produce and provide clean cookstoves to people in Tanzania. The WHO estimates that indoor air pollution caused by smoke from cooking fires contributes to two million premature deaths annually, more than are caused by tuberculosis or malaria, according to GHFN. The piece includes comments from Radha Muthiah, executive director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, and Everline Kihulla, who works for the Tanzanian clean cookstove manufacturer TaTedo (Striker, January 2012).
Global Hunger Estimates ‘Are Not Infallible’
“While the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) estimated figures on global hunger often grab headlines, the uncertainty surrounding the numbers receives relatively little media attention,” Guardian reporter Claire Provost writes in the newspaper’s “Poverty Matters Blog.” In 2009, the FAO responded to a demand for global hunger figures with the projections that “by the end of the year … world hunger was likely to reach a ‘historic high,’ with 1.02 billion people going hungry every day,” Provost writes, adding, “Almost immediately, these figures seemed to take on a life of their own. References to the global hunger crisis affecting ‘one billion people’ or ‘one-sixth of humanity’ began appearing in speeches, media reports, and advocacy campaigns around the world.”
Supporting Foreign Aid Programs
In this New York Times opinion piece, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes that people’s willingness to donate billions of dollars for humanitarian relief efforts “is a testament to human beings’ generosity. But that fact of our generosity also explains why I am so frustrated by the increasing opposition in many rich countries to foreign aid.” Gates examines the underlying reasons keeping people “from supporting government investment to alleviate extreme suffering” and counters “the argument that aid doesn’t work even when it gets to its intended recipients” by providing a number of examples of advancements made in global health in recent years “due in large part to aid-funded programs.”
First Edition: January 27, 2012
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about how health policy issues were part of last night’s GOP presidential primary debate fray.
Gates Pledges $750 Million To Global Fund
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, pledged $750 million on behalf of the foundation to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Associated Press reports. Gates said the donation, which comes on top of $650 million contributed by the foundation to the fund over the last decade, “is meant to encourage other potential donors,” the AP notes (Heilprin/Jordans, 1/26). According to the Financial Times, the Global Fund “will receive the money within five years, but with the option to draw on the total amount immediately to cover temporary shortfalls in cash from its other donors, most of whom are industrialized nations’ official development agencies” (Jack, 1/26).
More Than 40% Of World’s Population At Risk Of Dengue, WHO Fact Sheet States
“The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades,” the WHO writes in an updated fact sheet about dengue and severe dengue published on the organization’s website. According to the fact sheet, “Over 2.5 billion people — over 40 percent of the world’s population — are now at risk from dengue,” and “WHO currently estimates there may be 50-100 million dengue infections worldwide every year” (January 2012).
Responding To Emergence Of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
This post in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ “Smart Global Health” blog examines drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), stating, “[S]ince the recent outbreak of the so-called totally drug-resistant tuberculosis (TDR-TB) in India, TB has a new face.” The blog details what TDR-TB is, recaps how resistant strains of TB develop and suggests several ways in which the global health community should respond (Kramer, 1/25).
GOP Readies Plan Should SCOTUS Strike Down Health Law
Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, said Republicans will be ready with a replacement package if the health law is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The Health Law’s Moving Parts: Essential Benefits, Innovation And Consumer-Friendly Plan Information
News outlets report on a variety of health law implementation news, ranging from how a new center is testing ways to improve care and cut costs, to efforts to salvage consumer information requirements for health plans and to define essential benefits.
