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Senate vote on contraception policy set for Thursday

With the political stakes high, lawmakers are expected to vote Thursday on a Republican measure to let employers opt out of covering any health treatment they find morally objectionable.

1 Mar 2012

ACTB and ACTG1 actin genes cause Baraitser-Winter syndrome

Scientists from Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington, in collaboration with the Genomic Disorders Group Nijmegen in the Netherlands, have identified two new genes that cause Baraitser-Winter syndrome, a rare brain malformation that is characterized by droopy eyelids and intellectual disabilities.

1 Mar 2012

Biogen Idec announces new easier to use injection for multiple sclerosis

The Food and Drug Administration approved the company's Avonex pen, an injection designed to reduce pain and anxiety when patients self-administer the drug. The FDA also approved a new dosing schedule for the drug intended to reduce flu-like symptoms often associated with the drug.

29 Feb 2012

Texas doctor caught in a $375 million fraud

A Texas doctor has been accused of running a massive health fraud care scheme with thousands of fraudulent patients and intermediaries allegedly offering cash, food stamps or free groceries, to cheat the Medicare and Medicaid of nearly $375 million.

29 Feb 2012

First Edition: February 29, 2012

Today's headlines include reports on yesterday's GOP presidential primary elections and how health policy played a role in some of the rhetoric.

29 Feb 2012

On health exchange, Neb. makes progress, Wis. and Texas mull next steps

A roundup of reports on what's happening on the ground in several states, where Republican governors have been opposed to implementing the health law's insurance exchanges.

29 Feb 2012

Obama contraception rule continues to fuel arguments

Conservative women opposed to the birth control mandate are pushing to reframe the debate around religious liberty. Meanwhile, a range of organizations, including pediatricians, labor unions and charities that fight birth defects, oppose an amendment by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that would allow employers to exclude any insurance benefit they deemed immoral.

29 Feb 2012

Feds pursue anti-trust action against Georgia hospital chain, other state hospital news

Hospital news from around the country includes: concern in Mass. about the bottom line, mergers in Georgia and more about Dallas' troubled Parkland facility.

29 Feb 2012

DKR Fund for Alzheimer's research launches today

The Darrell K Royal Fund for Alzheimer's Research was launched today at an Interim Joint Committee hearing on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) in the Texas Senate Chamber. The DKR Fund is named after legendary Texas football coach Darrell Royal and was created to facilitate research and care for Texans to attempt to cure AD in our lifetimes.

29 Feb 2012

Hearing loss may increase risk of falls

Hearing loss has been linked with a variety of medical, social and cognitive ills, including dementia. However, a new study led by a Johns Hopkins researcher suggests that hearing loss may also be a risk factor for another huge public health problem: falls.

27 Feb 2012

State roundup: State tobacco funds scrutinized; More allegations against Calif.'s Prime Healthcare; Ore. CCOs get green light

A U.S. Surgeon General's report due to be released March 8 will come down hard on states that have cut anti-smoking funds in tough fiscal times, said Terry Pechacek, who oversees the report as director for Science in the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report can't result in sanctions, but it has proven to move public opinion in the past to force changes by tobacco companies in how they sell cigarettes, how states fund efforts and how the federal government regulates the trade.

27 Feb 2012

First Edition: February 27, 2012

Among today's health policy headlines, a new Politico poll highlights the deep divide in public opinion that exists regarding the repeal of the health law.

27 Feb 2012

Viewpoints: Elizabeth Warren on contraception mandate, comparison shopping for drugs, 'dismantling' Illinois

In this Kaiser Health News Different Takes feature, The University Of Maryland's Dr. E. Albert Reece and The Heritage Foundation's Stuart Butler discuss how health enterprise zones, a new take on an old economic development idea, might be used to improve the health of the state's minority populations (2/23). Read the commentaries by Reece and Butler.

24 Feb 2012

Senate contests touch on contraception, health reform issues

Media outlets report on how these issues are being debated in Senate campaigns in Massachusetts and Texas.

24 Feb 2012

Woman barred from House contraception hearing testifies at Dems' event

A woman barred by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, R- Calif., last week from testifying at a hearing on contraception and religion starred in a House Democratic hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, saying women are "energized" on the contraception issue.

24 Feb 2012

State roundup: Calif. prison medical facilities; New Ore. Rx dispensing rules

David Martin, who helped write Governor Deval Patrick's health care payment reform bill, is leaving. Martin, the Director of Health Care Policy and Strategy in the office of Health and Human Services, is taking a job at Covidien as Senior Director of Health Care Economics and Policy.

24 Feb 2012

First Edition: February 24, 2012

Today's headlines include reports detailing what becomes of the deficit -- particularly at this time of rising Medicare costs for the aging population -- under the plans being advanced by the GOP presidential candidates.

24 Feb 2012

Workshop increases pharmacy and medical students' empathy

One year ago, a landmark study led by Mohammadreza Hojat, Ph.D., research professor, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Thomas Jefferson University, quantified a relationship between physicians' empathy and their patients' positive clinical outcomes, suggesting that a physician's empathy is an important factor associated with clinical competence.

24 Feb 2012

State legislatures contemplate controlling costs, health IT, prescribing authority

The proposed premium hikes for hundreds of thousands of California consumers with individual coverage would outpace the cost of overall medical care, which has risen just 3.6 percent in the last year.

24 Feb 2012

Videotaped encounter evaluates medical students conveying bad news to 'standardized patients'

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and the University of South Florida (USF) College of Medicine evaluated the experience of medical students who participated in videotaped sessions where they practiced conveying difficult news to "standardized patients" (SPs). The SPs role-played patients with a variety of cancers and who were receiving bad medical news.

23 Feb 2012