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Implementation issues: Actuaries under the microscope, tax subsidy projections and finding money for high-risk pools

Health law backers question the predictions of insurance "rate shock," because they are made by actuaries who have close ties to the industry.

19 Apr 2013

Family members of trauma patients can benefit by being present during critical moments of care

A critically injured person is wheeled into the emergency room. Family members rush to the patient's side. Soon, doctors and nurses begin emergency resuscitation efforts, inserting breathing tubes, pumping in blood and other fluids.

19 Apr 2013

Study finds tax-exempt hospitals spend little on 'community benefit'

New research also offers insights regarding the value of patient satisfaction as a quality indicator and the impact that context has on improving care.

19 Apr 2013

Health disparities not connected to lack of exercise, Vanderbilt study finds

Health disparities between white and black adults in the South are not connected to a lack of exercise but more likely related to other factors such as access to health care, socioeconomic status and perhaps genetics, according to a Vanderbilt study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

19 Apr 2013

Roundup: Calif. retiree system pick of five new HMO plans a blow to Blue Shield; D.C. delegate joins abortion bill fight; Puerto Rican docs flee to mainland

A selection of health policy stories from California, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Georgia, Minnesota, Oregon and Colorado.

19 Apr 2013

Longer looks: The timely trauma response in Boston; Problems with aging doctors; Transplants from donors with HIV

The bombs at the Boston Marathon were designed to maim and kill, and they did. Three people died within the first moments of the blast. More than a hundred and seventy people were injured. They had their limbs blown off, vital arteries severed, bones fractured, flesh torn open by shrapnel or scorched by the blasts' heat. Yet it now appears that every one of the wounded alive when rescuers reached them will survive.

19 Apr 2013

Antibiotic resistance: A growing problem in hospital and outpatient settings

A new study concludes that problems with antibiotic resistance faced by outpatients may be as bad as those in hospitalized patients, and that more studies of outpatients are needed - both to protect their health and to avoid inappropriate or unnecessary drug use.

19 Apr 2013

Kids mental health cuts at issue in Mass.; Colo. considers its mental illness 'hold' laws

Massachusetts officials are planning hearings about the Cambridge Health Alliance's planned cuts to pediatric services -- mainly to mental health care, while Colorado lawmakers consider their "involuntary hold" laws governing the treatment and holding of mentally ill people deemed a danger to themselves or others.

19 Apr 2013

Key architect of health law worries that public confusion could lead to 'train wreck'

At a Wednesday Senate Finance Committee Hearing, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about what the administration is doing to educate the public as it rolls out key provisions of the law.

19 Apr 2013

Former congressional staffer faces scrutiny in Medicare advantage leak

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, continues asking questions about a recent Medicare Advantage leak that reverberated through the stock market, while members of the Senate Finance Committee react to the Medicare funding reductions advanced by President Barack Obama.

19 Apr 2013

Arkansas' Medicaid expansion alternative survives bumpy path, gains state legislators' final approval

The GOP-controlled legislature narrowly approved the compromise that would use federal funds to buy private insurance for low-income residents.

19 Apr 2013

Patient satisfaction does not reflect the quality of surgical care in hospitals

Patient satisfaction is an important indicator of a hospital's service quality, but new Johns Hopkins research suggests that it doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the surgical care patients receive.

18 Apr 2013

Proposed food aid reform garners mixed reaction from lawmakers, AP reports

"Rajiv Shah, the administrator of [USAID], said Tuesday that the system of shipping U.S.-grown food abroad has been inefficient and that changes are necessary as a humanitarian crisis in Syria and recent droughts in Africa sap food aid from other countries in need," the Associated Press reports.

18 Apr 2013

International community seems powerless to stop attacks on polio workers

Noting a number of attacks against polio workers in Pakistan over the past few months, Asif Saeed Memon, an associate fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, writes in a Dawn.com opinion piece, "As a response to the attacks, the governments of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suspended the campaign for a short period, while the United Nations removed some of its field personnel until they could receive guarantees of better security."

18 Apr 2013

First Edition: April 18, 2013

Today's headlines include reports from Capitol Hill about one Democratic senator's poor reviews of the Obama administration's progress in implementing the health law.

18 Apr 2013

New issue of GHD-NET's Health & Foreign Policy Bulletin available online

The March 2013 issue (.pdf) of the Global Health Diplomacy Network's (GHD-NET) Health & Foreign Policy Bulletin is now available online.

18 Apr 2013

U.N., U.S. offer aid to Iran, Pakistan in wake of 7.8-magnitude earthquake

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the remote south-east Iran-Pakistan border on Tuesday, with tremors felt across Pakistan, India and the Middle East, BBC News reports (4/16).

18 Apr 2013

President Obama's budget request signals confidence in Global Fund

President Obama's "budget request demonstrates a strong and well-timed endorsement of the Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria] in advance of the replenishment, and will hopefully leverage similarly strong pledges from other donors," Amanda Glassman, director of global health policy and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, and Jenny Ottenhoff, policy outreach associate at the center, write in the CGD's "Global Health Policy" blog.

18 Apr 2013

Millions of people in Sahel continue to need food assistance, Oxfam report says

"The humanitarian response to the 2012 food crisis in Africa's Sahel region was bigger and better than in previous emergencies, but millions of people still did not receive the assistance they needed and many remain vulnerable to hunger, Oxfam said in a report on Tuesday," AlertNet reports.

18 Apr 2013