Health Care News and Research

RSS

State highlights: Calif. governor earmarks money for Medi-Cal expansion; Mental health reforms take shape in Kan., Colo.

Brown earmarked $350 million in his spending plan to help enroll more Californians in Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for the poor. Under the proposal, enrollment rules would be simplified to cover residents who are currently eligible but not enrolled.

15 Jan 2013

Viewpoints: The country's deep health problems; Anthem's Rx policy in Calif. may not be legal; Wis. Gov. Medicaid decision looming

It is now shockingly clear that poor health is a much broader and deeper problem than past studies have suggested. An authoritative report issued by the Institute of Medicine this week found that, on average, Americans experience higher rates of disease and injury and die sooner than people in other high-income countries.

15 Jan 2013

Governors urge feds to give them bigger health care voice

Democratic and Republican leaders of the National Governors Association asked for greater flexibility from the federal government on health law implementation.

11 Jan 2013

PlusNews examines potential cuts in U.S. HIV funding to Ethiopia

PlusNews discusses potential cuts in U.S. funding for HIV-related activities in Ethiopia and the role of greater in-country funding for health. In 2013, "Ethiopia will experience a 79 percent reduction in U.S. HIV financing from PEPFAR," according to a blog post written last year by Amanda Glassman, director of global health policy and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, the news service notes.

11 Jan 2013

Obama taps White House chief of staff to head Treasury department

News outlets report that although Jack Lew is known as a deficit hawk, he has been a defender of Medicaid and other safety net programs.

11 Jan 2013

True solution to cholera is improving access to safe water, sanitation

"Even when it is not covered in the news or noticed by the public, cholera occurs regularly in the developing world, and the annual number of cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) has increased over the past few years to more than half a million cases and 7,816 related deaths reported from all regions in 2011," Ronald Waldman of George Washington University, Eric Mintz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Heather Papowitz of the U.N. Children's Fund write in a New England Journal of Medicine perspective piece.

11 Jan 2013

States continue efforts to advance health exchanges

States look for creative ways to publicize the online marketplaces where people can shop for and purchase coverage beginning next fall. Meanwhile, Minnesota legislators introduce a measure to set up such a market, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott releases new, much smaller estimates of the cost of expanding that state's Medicaid program.

11 Jan 2013

U.S. trails 16 other affluent countries in life expectancy, health status

It's no news that the U.S. has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than most high-income countries. But a magisterial new report says Americans are actually less healthy across their entire life spans than citizens of 16 other wealthy nations.

11 Jan 2013

Mass. abortion clinic 'buffer zone' law upheld by federal appeals court

In Massachusetts, a federal appeals court has upheld a 2007 state law that makes it a crime to loiter within 35 feet of an abortion clinic, despite First Amendment challenges from anti-abortion advocates.

11 Jan 2013

Fiscal cliff boosts clinical data registries, but cuts some health care payments

CQ HealthBeat reports on a provision of the fiscal cliff law intended to encourage physicians to submit data to registries that could be a tool to promote better quality care. The Medicare NewsGroup analyzes another provision that changes how payments are calculated for end stage renal disease drugs.

11 Jan 2013

Boston declares flu emergency as aggressive viruses spread across the nation

The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. And these are all developing amid the normal winter highs for the many viruses that cause symptoms on the "colds and flu" spectrum.

11 Jan 2013

CSIS talks with Malawi President Banda about women's health, empowerment

The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) "wanted to learn more about how women leaders in Africa are bringing new attention to women's health and empowerment in their own countries, and to bring those voices into the discussion about U.S. policy priorities for women's global health," so a small CSIS team traveled to Malawi and Zambia in December 2012, Janet Fleischman and Julia Nagel of CSIS write in the group's Smart Global Health blog.

11 Jan 2013

Report: U.S. could save $2T over a decade by encouraging cost-effective care

A new report from the Commonwealth Fund says the federal government could save $2 trillion on health care costs over a decade it if accelerates provider adoption of more-effective care.

11 Jan 2013

More than 6% of Haitians have had cholera since outbreak began, new data show

"The death toll in Haiti's cholera epidemic is approaching 8,000, and more than six percent of Haitians have had the disease since it invaded the country in October 2010, according to reports released this week," CIDRAP reports.

11 Jan 2013

Mirena coil intrauterine device a better treatment for heavy menstrual periods

The hormone-releasing Mirena coil intrauterine device (IUD) is a better treatment for heavy menstrual periods than other conventional medical approaches, according to results of a major clinical trial led by scientists from the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham.

11 Jan 2013

Anthem proposes double-digit rate hikes in Calif., prompting insurance commissioner outcry

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones is calling a recent double-digit rate hike proposal and reinsurance fee by Anthem Blue Cross in his state "unreasonable," though he doesn't have much power to change it.

11 Jan 2013

Blog posts call for policy action condemning intelligence community's use of health campaigns

"It remains to be seen if a new surge of efforts -- a letter of protest from leading public health experts, a petition -- asking the Obama Administration to prohibit spies from pretending to be overseas aid and health workers will force a change in policy," Tom Paulson and Tom Murphy write in the Humanosphere blog.

11 Jan 2013