Latest KFF Health News Stories
Whistle-Blower Lawsuit Alleges Dialysis Provider Wasted Drugs To Boost Profits
The New York Times reports that millions of dollars in Medicare payments could have resulted from this practice. The suit is being brought by a former clinic nurse and doctor.
NY Times: 10 States Will Be Subject To Insurance Rate Reviews By Feds
Federal auditors will take over in the states where the Obama administration finds current regulation of premiums not adequate.
N.H. Hospitals Sue Over Medicaid Payments
As states seek to keep spending down for the health care program for low-income and disabled residents, they look to trim reimbursement rates and move more enrollees to private plans that control costs.
NFIB: Some Small Businesses Drop Coverage
The organization links the cause of this finding to the health law, but critics of the survey dispute the it.
South Korean Group Delivers Food Aid To North Korea
The Korean Sharing Movement, a South Korean relief group, “crossed into North Korea Tuesday with 12 trucks full of flour, marking the first food aid of its kind since a North Korean attack last year,” VOA’s “Breaking News” blog reports. The group delivered 300 tons of flour to the border city of Paju. It will feed 22,000 children, according to the Reverend In Myung-jin, who leads the group (7/26).
World Leaders Should Either Scale Up Commitment To Polio Eradication Significantly Or Abandon Goal
“There are few ideas as powerful as the eradication of a human disease. But the euphoria around the world’s single success to date
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about Washington’s debt-celing showdown, and news that the federal government will conduct health insurance rate reviews in 10 states.
Obama, Boehner Each Claim High Ground On Debt Ceiling As Parties Dispute Entitlement Reform
On Capitol Hill, two plans emerged: the House GOP plan would squeeze savings from government entitlement programs, while the Senate Dems’ approach would leave Medicare unchanged.
Some Hospitals Face Hard Times
Walter Reed Army Medical Center will close its doors after nearly a century. By month’s end, the Shriners Hospitals will stop its tradition of providing free care to children. And, lastly, hospital bonds maybe vulnerable to downgrades because of potential reduction in Medicare reimbursements and Medicaid cuts.
East Africa Famine Highlights Need For Better Science Communications
The drought in the Horn of Africa “emphasizes the gap between our rapidly increasing ability to predict disasters, thanks largely to advances in science and technology, and our capacity to generate the political will to carry out effective mitigation strategies,” according to a SciDev.Net opinion piece by editor David Dickson.
African Leaders Must Invest In Malaria Prevention
In a Daily Caller opinion piece, Richard Tren, director of Africa Fighting Malaria, highlights a finding in a recent malaria report that the U.S. government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “were responsible for 85% of the steep increase in malaria funding between 2007 and 2009.” But “[i]f 30 African heads of state were to give up their private jets, a fund of well over $500 million could be generated,” Tren writes.
Media Outlets Examine Mobile Phones’ Effect On Health, Development In Africa
PBS NewsHour examines how the Canadian organization MEDA is using text messages to track malaria supplies in local clinics and retailers in Tanzania. The piece includes a related video featuring a MEDA employee giving a tour of the program (Cheers, 7/22).
In related news, the Observer reports on the impact mobile phones are having in Africa, including on banking, farming and health. The article includes case studies examining how mobile technology is being used in certain areas of the continent (Fox, 7/24). A related video documents how mobile phones are affecting Uganda’s most remote communities (Eldin, 7/24).
Britain, Australia Urge International Community To Assist In Drought Relief
Andrew Mitchell, Britain’s international development secretary, and Kevin Rudd, Australia’s foreign minister, describe their countries’ responses to the drought and famine in East Africa in an Independent opinion piece. “The U.N. appeals are still underfunded by almost $1 billion. Britain and Australia urge the rest of the world to join them to work to prevent this humanitarian disaster turning into a catastrophe on a scale of the 1984 Ethiopian famine,” they write.
U.N. Emergency Meeting Recognizes Need For Urgent Response To Horn Of Africa Drought
At an emergency meeting at the Rome headquarters of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Monday, the agency announced “there will be a donors pledging conference Wednesday in Nairobi to raise as much as $1.6 billion to help fight famine in Somalia and other drought-stricken populations in East Africa,” the Associated Press/Forbes reports (7/25). Prior to the meeting, the World Bank “announced it is providing more than $500 million to assist drought victims, in addition to $12 million in immediate assistance to help those worst hit by the crisis,” a World Bank press release states (7/25).
Haitian Cholera Epidemic Worsening With Start Of Rainy Season
According to the Haitian government, more than 5,800 people have died of cholera since the epidemic began in October, and health care workers have seen an increase in cases “[w]ith the rainy season now in progress,” the Los Angeles Times reports (Gaestel, 7/24).
Rwandan Government Pushing For Sanitation Facilities In Every Household
Rwanda “is one of only four countries in Africa which look set to achieve Millennium Development Goal 7 to ensure environmental sustainability, which includes halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation,” Inter Press Service reports in an article examining hygiene and sanitation in the country. The other three countries are Mozambique, Ghana and Sierra Leone, the news service notes.
Gridlock Continues Despite Push To Reach Debt-Ceiling Deal
Democrat and Republican leaders are preparing their own backup plans as possibilities for a bipartisan approach appear increasingly dim. Both political and policy-oriented differences are making the process difficult.
Iowa, Kentucky Get Extra Time To Comply With MLR Rule
But North Dakota became the first state to have the Department of Health and Human Services deny a waiver request regarding the health law’s medical loss ratio provision, which requires health plans in the individual and small-group markets to spend no more than 20 percent of premiums on administrative costs.
Rwanda Testing Non-Surgical Circumcision Device In National Campaign
BBC News on Sunday looked at how Rwanda’s national circumcision campaign, which began in December 2010 to help lower the incidence of HIV in the country, is testing a new “device called a PrePex, a three-piece mechanism consisting of two plastic rings and an elastic mechanism.” The device “is clamped onto the penis without any need for sutures or anesthesia” to remove the foreskin.
