FAQ: ‘Super Committee’ Could Have Big Impact On Medicare, Medicaid Spending
By Phil Galewitz Mary Agnes Carey
August 11, 2011
KFF Health News Original
A guide to how the congressional “super” committee’s deliberations could influence Medicare and Medicaid.
Health On The Hill Transcript: Obama Tries To Aid Deficit Talks With Meetings
June 28, 2011
KFF Health News Original
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey talks with Jackie Judd about President Obama’s separate meetings with Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid in which the trio is trying to find common ground on Medicare cuts to help lower the deficit.
Health Care Recommendations From Previous Bipartisan Deficit-Reduction Groups: Document
August 2, 2011
KFF Health News Original
The debt-ceiling agreement calls for a bipartisan “super committee.” This is not the first effort to find a bipartisan agreement on reducing the federal deficit; here is a guide to the health-care recommendations from four groups.
Excluded Groups Want In On Health Information Technology Funding
By Kimberly Leonard, iWatch News
May 23, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Providers who were frozen out of a pool of $27 billion in federal funds to convert to electronic medical records are trying to fight back to qualify for the money and increase the size of the money available.
Medicaid Makes ‘Big Difference’ In Lives, Study Finds
By Julie Rovner, NPR News
July 7, 2011
KFF Health News Original
But a new study – the first of its kind in nearly four decades – finds that Medicaid is making a bigger impact than even some of its supporters may have realized.
Memo To GOP: Cutting Medicaid Is Unpopular, Too
By Julie Rovner, NPR News
May 26, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Changing Medicare is looking politically risky, so budget-cutters may focus on Medicaid instead. That, too, could prove unpopular because a recent poll shows the public does not favor large cuts to the program.
Why It’s Okay That EHR Adoption Will Fall Behind 2011 Goals (Guest Opinion)
By Brian Klepper, PhD, David C. Kibbe, MD, MBA
July 7, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Federal officials had hoped a multitude of doctors and hospitals would adopt electronic health records in 2011. But, in reality, the number of physicians using EHRs won’t likely move beyond the current 20 percent to 25 percent rate. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Some Church Groups Form Sharing Ministries To Cover Members’ Medical Costs
By Michelle Andrews
April 25, 2011
KFF Health News Original
The groups are financed through a monthly fee, and those revenues are divvied up and sent to members when they have health care expenses.
Florida Legislature Passes Massive Medicaid Overhaul
By Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
May 8, 2011
KFF Health News Original
Arguing that the proposal will save tax dollars and improve patient care, Republican lawmakers Friday approved a massive overhaul of Florida’s Medicaid system.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
