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Budget experts focus on health costs

Four well-known budget gurus testified Tuesday in a public super committee hearing, telling the panel they should raise revenues and overhaul expensive federal health programs in order to develop a budget compromise that will meet the $1.2 trillion, 10-year mandate.

3 Nov 2011

UNICEF asks donors to fully fund request to assist North Koreans facing malnutrition

"Millions of children and women of child-bearing age in North Korea face malnutrition which can leave them at higher risk of death or disease, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday," Reuters reports.

3 Nov 2011

Analysis: How the health law shakes out if High Court overturns individual mandate

Politico examines this critical issue and offers various scenarios of what might happen if the mandate is struck down. Meanwhile, in other health law implementation news, media outlets offer a range of stories, including reports on health exchanges and association health plans.

3 Nov 2011

Synthetic artemisinin discovery could make malaria treatments more affordable, accessible

"Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the biotech start-up Amyris have developed a process to manufacture artemisinin, a crucial ingredient in first-line malaria drugs that until now had to be extracted from a natural crop called sweet wormwood," PBS NewsHour reports.

3 Nov 2011

November issue of WHO Bulletin now available online

The November issue of the WHO Bulletin features an editorial on maternal death surveillance and response; a public health round-up; an article on the trends in the prevalence of disability in China from 1987 to 2006; and a paper evaluating large-scale health programs at a district level in resource-limited countries.

3 Nov 2011

Roundup: N.Y. autism coverage mandate; Miss. 'personhood' referendum; Wis. MLR controversy

The dazzling new hospital that will open here in Hopewell on Sunday looks more like a five-star resort than a medical center. It may also be the best hope for survival of its corporate parent, Capital Health, a nonprofit company that operates three health care facilities in New Jersey.

3 Nov 2011

Doctors face deep Medicare pay reductions — but slightly less than original estimates suggest

Without congressional intervention, physicians will face a 27.4 percent Medicare pay cut on Jan. 1. This reduction is slightly smaller than the earlier estimate of 29.5 percent.

3 Nov 2011

Foreign aid from U.S., dozens of other countries makes the world 'better, more prosperous and safer'

In this Washington Post opinion piece, Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, cites declines in global child mortality rates as an example of how development aid works, and writes, "I am giving a report Thursday to the heads of the Group of 20 (G20) governments, including President Obama, suggesting creative ways for the world to continue investing in development despite fiscal constraints."

3 Nov 2011

Cain to talk health policy on Capitol Hill

GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain is scheduled today to give a Capitol Hill speech that is expected to focus on his health care policies and positions. Also in the news, a Washington Post fact-check examines claims by Mitt Romney, another GOP candidate, regarding health care subsidies.

3 Nov 2011

Long-term care insurance gets boost from federal workers

In September, the Office of Personnel Management announced that it had added 45,000 people to its long-term care insurance rolls - a 20 percent jump after a three-month enrollment period. It's the largest long-term care plan in the country, with 297,000 enrollees - all government employees or their families. The surge is notable because long-term care insurance has attracted so few new customers in recent years, even though an estimated 15 million people will need long-term services by 2020.

3 Nov 2011

Medicare fee payments for outpatient care to go up 1.9 percent; payments for home health will drop

Hospital operators such as Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC) will get higher federal payments for emergency room visits, diagnostic imaging and other outpatient services in 2012 under U.S. rules. Medicare payments for outpatient services will rise 1.9 percent to $41 billion and dialysis clinics, cancer centers and ambulatory surgery facilities also are scheduled to receive modest fee increases from the U.S. health program for the elderly and disabled under regulations issued yesterday.

3 Nov 2011

State Medicaid Directors seek to sway feds on eligibility rules

In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the state officials made recommendations about new regulations and asked for coordination between federal and state leaders. Meanwhile, in other Medicaid news, a New York doctor gets a big payout from his whistleblower lawsuit, and the Lousiania program reports a shortfall.

3 Nov 2011

Novel indirect screener can identify women at risk for illicit drug use

A team of researchers at Wayne State University's Parent Health Lab in the School of Medicine have developed a novel indirect screener that identifies women at risk for drug use by evaluating correlates of illicit drug use rather than drug use itself. In phase I testing, this new screener proved to be more sensitive than any alternative approach at detecting recent drug use.

3 Nov 2011

Replacing short auto trips with bicycle trips would yield major health benefits

Cutting out short auto trips and replacing them with mass transit and active transport would yield major health benefits, according to a study just published in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

3 Nov 2011

OECD with Eurostat, WHO publishes manual on accounting practices for health service spending

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) "is urging all countries to meet a global standard in the way they account for their health service spending," BMJ reports, adding, "In October the OECD, in collaboration with Eurostat and the World Health Organization, published what it describes as a 'monster of a manual' called A System of Health Accounts.

3 Nov 2011

Nearly half of pregnant women in Southern China's poor areas do not get tested for syphilis, study shows

"Nearly half of pregnant women do not get tested for syphilis in poor areas of southern China where the sexually transmitted disease has seen a resurgence, researchers said Wednesday" in a study published in the WHO's November 2011 Bulletin, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.

3 Nov 2011

Johns Hopkins Hospital receives NRC's Consumer Choice Award

For the 16th straight year, The Johns Hopkins Hospital has received the Consumer Choice Award from the National Research Corporation (NRC), a firm that specializes in health care performance measurement and improvement.

3 Nov 2011

Viewpoints: GOP intransigence on super committee; taxing health benefits would backfire; the need for care in defining essential benefits

There may be logic to Speaker John Boehner's insidious intransigence. Republicans keep saying no and Democrats keep offering more concessions. Super committee Republicans suggested instead a package based largely on cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, combined with magical hundreds of billions they say would be produced by slashing assistance to the elderly and the vulnerable, by selling off government assets, and by the growth sparked by tax cuts.

3 Nov 2011

Bloomberg News examines how Latin American countries' abortion policies may hold lessons for Republican presidential candidates supporting abortion bans in U.S.

Bloomberg News examines abortion laws in Latin America and writes that the region, "home to the world's strictest abortion laws, may hold lessons for U.S. Republican presidential hopefuls who advocate a ban on the practice" in the U.S.

3 Nov 2011

Exercise can prevent inherited obesity & obesity raises injury risk: Two studies

A new study has shown that having an obesity gene should not mean absolute obesity for individuals. The gene may be countered by physical activity.

2 Nov 2011

Health Care News and Research

Budget experts focus on health costs

UNICEF asks donors to fully fund request to assist North Koreans facing malnutrition

Analysis: How the health law shakes out if High Court overturns individual mandate

Synthetic artemisinin discovery could make malaria treatments more affordable, accessible

November issue of WHO Bulletin now available online

Roundup: N.Y. autism coverage mandate; Miss. 'personhood' referendum; Wis. MLR controversy

Doctors face deep Medicare pay reductions — but slightly less than original estimates suggest

Foreign aid from U.S., dozens of other countries makes the world 'better, more prosperous and safer'

Cain to talk health policy on Capitol Hill

Long-term care insurance gets boost from federal workers

Medicare fee payments for outpatient care to go up 1.9 percent; payments for home health will drop

State Medicaid Directors seek to sway feds on eligibility rules

Novel indirect screener can identify women at risk for illicit drug use

Replacing short auto trips with bicycle trips would yield major health benefits

OECD with Eurostat, WHO publishes manual on accounting practices for health service spending

Nearly half of pregnant women in Southern China's poor areas do not get tested for syphilis, study shows

Johns Hopkins Hospital receives NRC's Consumer Choice Award

Viewpoints: GOP intransigence on super committee; taxing health benefits would backfire; the need for care in defining essential benefits

Bloomberg News examines how Latin American countries' abortion policies may hold lessons for Republican presidential candidates supporting abortion bans in U.S.

Exercise can prevent inherited obesity & obesity raises injury risk: Two studies

Event guide: 3rd Measuring Patient Engagement Summit eBook

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Expanding access to NMR with the Fourier 80 Duo

Advancing Intracellular Delivery with LumiPore®

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