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House GOP seeks steep spending cuts, but postpones moment of reckoning

In the next budget battle chapter, House Republicans plan to demand spending cuts that would balance the budget in 10 years and require significant changes to Medicare and other safety-net programs.

25 Jan 2013

Employer-insurer coalition asks HHS to pare essential benefits

Employers, insurers and health providers worry that requiring expansive coverage in the policies sold in health insurance markets could make insurance unaffordable.

25 Jan 2013

Setting research priorities for adolescent sexual and reproductive health

Quality sexual and reproductive health care is an essential component of public health. However, there are insufficient evidence-based policies related to adolescent sexual and reproductive health in low- and middle-income countries.

24 Jan 2013

'Big Push' campaign revived at World Economic summit

"Last September the Huffington Post, together with the Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria], launched 'The Big Push' campaign, seeking to build on the great progress that has been made in recent years fighting AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria."

24 Jan 2013

Reports examine progress in global NTD response

Writing in the ONE Blog, Neeraj Mistry, managing director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, highlights two reports released last week that examine global efforts against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) one year after the London Declaration, as well as a report by the Hudson Institute, also released last week, which "highlight[s] the crucial links between NTDs and broader economic and societal consequences."

24 Jan 2013

Madagascar faces challenges in vaccinating children

"In Madagascar, pneumonia is responsible for 21 percent of deaths among children under five years old -- making it the leading cause of death for this age group," but "[t]he recent introduction of a vaccine to protect against pneumococcal disease, the leading cause of severe childhood pneumonia, is attempting to reduce the thousands of child deaths that occur every year in" the country, IRIN reports.

24 Jan 2013

Experts meet to discuss U.S., global TB drug shortages

The Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports on a meeting held last week "to discuss the problem of U.S. and global tuberculosis [TB] drug shortages."

24 Jan 2013

Family Planning 2020 Reference Group announced last month

Writing in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Jennifer James, founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good, highlights the Family Planning 2020 Reference Group, announced last month with the aim of ensuring the commitments made at the 2012 London Family Planning Summit are honored.

24 Jan 2013

Medicaid patients could face higher co-payments, other charges

Millions of low-income people could be required to pay more for health care under a proposed federal policy that would give states more freedom to impose co-payments and other charges on Medicaid patients.

24 Jan 2013

Indian company plans to make lower-cost injectable polio vaccine

Serum Institute of India Ltd., the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, plans to "slash the price of polio immunization and introduce shots for diarrhea and pneumonia, undercutting Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc.," Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

24 Jan 2013

Cost transparency does not influence the way physicians ordered imaging tests

In a study designed to see if doctors who are told the exact price of expensive medical tests like MRIs in advance would order fewer of them, Johns Hopkins researchers got their answer: No.

24 Jan 2013

State roundup: Legislatures tackle health budget gaps, worker pay

With the national economy picking up and the housing market improving, states are poised in 2013 to finally rebound from the recession's lingering revenue crunch. But continued budget delays in Washington may dampen that prospect.

24 Jan 2013

Supreme Court dashes hospitals' hopes for recovering underpayments

The court's unanimous ruling rejected the arguments advanced by 18 hospitals that sought to reopen a set of Medicare claims that were more than 25 years old.

24 Jan 2013

Hastings Center Report special report on ethical oversight of learning health care systems

The longstanding ethical framework for protecting human volunteers in medical research needs to be replaced because it is outdated and can impede efforts to improve health care quality, assert leaders in bioethics, medicine, and health policy in two companion articles in a Hastings Center Report special report, "Ethical Oversight of Learning Health Care Systems."

24 Jan 2013

Brazilian city declares health emergency due to dengue fever outbreak

"Municipal authorities in Campo Grande, the capital of the southwestern Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, on Monday declared a health emergency due to a serious outbreak of dengue fever," Fox News Latino reports.

24 Jan 2013

Bioethics leader proposes bold and controversial approach to fight obesity epidemic

Arguing that obesity "may be the most difficult and elusive public health problem the United States has ever encountered" and that anti-obesity efforts having made little discernible difference, Daniel Callahan, co-founder and President Emeritus of The Hastings Center, proposes a bold and controversial approach to fighting the epidemic.

24 Jan 2013

Obama should 'cement his legacy on global development' in second term

President Obama "has made some good headway on foreign aid in his first term, producing the government's first global development policy and an innovative new policy on disaster resilience, launching new efforts to combat global hunger, supporting reforms to the U.S. Agency for International Development and committing to greater aid transparency," Jeremy Konyndyk, director of policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, writes in a Huffington Post opinion piece, part of "The Road Forward" series.

24 Jan 2013

GOP debt limit plan sets up future battle lines on entitlement spending

House Republican leaders believe their leverage in forcing budget cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs will be greater in the next battles.

24 Jan 2013

Sen. Harkin prepares sweeping public health legislation to combat obesity

Senate HELP Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin is -- for the sixth time -- introducing legislation to combat obesity in children and adults across America using a host of new programs.

24 Jan 2013

'Helping Babies Breathe' program may help save newborns' lives, studies show

"Training midwives and other birth attendants to help babies start breathing immediately after birth may prevent stillbirths and newborn deaths in the developing world, two new studies suggest," Reuters reports, noting, "So-called birth asphyxia -- when babies are born not breathing -- is one of the major causes of newborn death in regions with limited resources, researchers said."

24 Jan 2013