Insurers Clash With Health Providers As States Expand Medicaid Managed Care
By Phil Galewitz
April 26, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Many states are trying to restrain Medicaid spending by putting more people into managed care plans, but with billions of dollars at stake, insurers and health providers are lobbying hard for their interests.
Minnesota GOP Between A Rock And Hard Place on Health Exchange Options
By Guy Gugliotta
May 16, 2011
KFF Health News Original
GOP lawmakers generally oppose efforts to set up the insurance marketplaces called for in the health law – but they aren’t crazy about the alternatives either.
Some Programs OK’d By Health Law Lacking Funding
By Phil Galewitz
June 9, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Some provisions in the new health law may never get off the ground due to lack of appropriations.
Health On The Hill Transcript: Democrats, Republicans Stake Out Positions In Budget Talks
June 20, 2011
KFF Health News Original
PBS Newshour’s David Chalian talks with Jackie Judd about the latest developments in the budget negotiations being led by Vice President Joe Biden and the role of Medicaid and Medicare in those talks.
GOP Pushes To Let States Reduce Medicaid Rolls
By Phil Galewitz Mary Agnes Carey
May 23, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Forget about Medicaid block grants. The GOP says states should be allowed to make it harder to qualify for the health program for the poor. Will Democrats go along?
For The NAIC, A Consequential Decision On The MLR (Guest Opinion)
May 9, 2011
KFF Health News Original
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is considering whether to endorse legislation that would remove broker and agent commissions from the medical loss ratio. The final decision will have far-reaching implications for the reliability of the MLR as a measure of a health plan’s value.
Community Health Centers To ‘Turn The Promise Of Coverage’ Into Better Care-The KHN Interview
By Jessica Marcy
May 4, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Dan Hawkins, senior vice president of the centers’ national association, says influx of federal funding is helping them to reach out to more people.
States Turn To Foundations To Help Pay Costs of Health Overhaul
By Christopher Weaver
June 5, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Tight budgets are driving more than a dozen states to ask foundations for financial help with setting up exchanges and taking other actions required under the federal health law.
Global Partnership Accelerates Progress In Maternal, Child Health
September 22, 2011
Morning Briefing
In a post in the State Department’s “DipNote” blog, Scott Radloff, director of the Office of Population and Reproductive Health at USAID, examines how, for the past year, the Alliance for Reproductive, Maternal, and Newborn Health, a partnership between USAID, the U.K. Department for International Development, the Australian Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched at last year’s U.N. General Assembly Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, has “accelerate[d] progress in improving maternal and child health” worldwide. Radloff highlights successes in Ethiopia and Pakistan and writes that by 2015, the Alliance aims to contribute to increases in the use of modern contraceptives, the number of women giving birth in the presence of a skilled birth attendant and the number of infants exclusively breastfed through the first six months of life (9/21).
Experimental Vaccine Halves Risk Of Malaria In African Children, Results Of Large Clinical Trial Suggest
October 19, 2011
Morning Briefing
“An experimental vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline halved the risk of African children getting malaria in a major clinical trial, making it likely to become the world’s first shot against the deadly disease,” according to a study “presented at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Malaria Forum conference in Seattle and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine” on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Analysis of data from the first 6,000 children to participate in “a final-stage Phase III clinical trial conducted at 11 trial sites in seven countries across sub-Saharan Africa … found that after 12 months of follow-up, three doses of RTS,S reduced the risk of children experiencing clinical malaria and severe malaria by 56 percent and 47 percent, respectively,” the news service writes (Kelland, 10/18). The vaccine was developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in partnership with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, and the study was partially funded by the Gates Foundation, Inter Press Service notes (Whitman, 10/18).
Health Insurers Opening Their Own Clinics To Trim Costs
By Christopher Weaver
May 4, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Some private plans serving people in Medicare and Medicaid have set up health care centers to help make sure patients get needed treatments and avoid hospitalizations.
Untouchable! Vets’ $52 Billion Health Care Plan
By Merrill Goozner, The Fiscal Times
May 12, 2011
KFF Health News Original
The military is trying to figure out ways to slow down the rapidly rising cost of care and the Obama administration’s 2012 budget calls for the first changes since 1996.
House Passes Ryan’s Controversial Budget Plan
By Merrill Goozner, The Fiscal Times
April 18, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Republicans on Friday passes a controversial budget plan championed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, and though it stands nearly no chance in the Senate, it is likely a starting point for negotiations among lawmakers.
Nature News Interviews Outgoing Gates Foundation Global Health President
June 22, 2011
Morning Briefing
As Tachi Yamada, president of global health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, prepares to leave the foundation this month, Nature News interviewed him about his work at the Gates Foundation and his predictions for global health.
At Least 600,000 Young Adults Join Parents’ Health Plans Under New Law
By Phil Galewitz
May 3, 2011
KFF Health News Original
One of the most popular provisions of the overhaul shows early success, but employers note that it also will usher in higher costs.
Lawmakers Return To Wrangle Over Health Law, 1099 Repeal Funding – Health On The Hill Transcript
March 28, 2011
KFF Health News Original
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey and Politico Pro’s David Nather report on lawmakers’ return to Washington to wrangle over health law funding.
A Guide To GOP Proposals On Family Planning Funds
By Aimee Miles
March 9, 2011
KFF Health News Original
House Republicans cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other Title X programs, and Senate Democrats tried to restore it. But the Senate Wednesday failed to pass either bill and so the programs, which once had strong bipartisan support, remain a point of contention.
Despite Deep Divisions, Health Law Will Eventually Win Over Public
By David Mermin Celinda Lake Dan Spicer
March 22, 2011
KFF Health News Original
The early provisions that have taken effect in the past year have slowly triggered understanding among more Americans about the law’s valuable patient protections, and consumers will oppose having those taken away.
