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Insuring your health: Health law expands Medicare coverage of preventive care

In her latest Kaiser Health News consumer column, Michelle Andrews writes: "Preventive health care is important at any age, but never more so than as we get older.

11 Aug 2010

House returns from recess to vote on extra Medicaid help for states

The House will vote today on a package that includes $16.1 billion in extra federal Medicaid money for states who say they need to close budget gaps.

11 Aug 2010

Dems continue push to sell health reform's benefits, GOP pushes back

The administration has struggled to sell senior citizens on the new health law, Politico reports. Here's why: "They know little about the early benefits the law has offered but remember last year's heated town halls, replete with death panels and rationing. And anti-health-reform rhetoric is generally proving to have considerable staying power."

11 Aug 2010

Medicare cuts could take greater toll on not-for-profit hospitals

Upcoming Medicare cuts to hospitals will have a bigger negative impact on nonprofit facilities than their for-profit counterparts, The Dallas Morning News reports. "In a note to investors, Moody's said the 0.4 percent Medicare reduction in inpatient hospital rates for fiscal year 2011 will amount to an estimated $440 million in lower payments.

11 Aug 2010

One in five Americans visited ER in 2007

The New York Times: One in five Americans visited the emergency room in 2007 whether they were insured or not, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. "Among the uninsured, 7.4 percent made two or more visits to an E.R., but so did 5.1 percent of people with private insurance. Medicaid recipients were the heaviest users of E.R.'s, with 15.3 percent of them making two or more visits during the year.

11 Aug 2010

WHO declares end of H1N1 pandemic

"World Health Organisation Director-General Margaret Chan announced Tuesday the end of the [H1N1] swine flu pandemic, more than a year after it was declared," Agence France-Presse reports. "The world is no longer in phase 6 of influenza pandemic alert. We are now moving into the post-pandemic period," Chan said during a virtual press conference from Hong Kong, according to a WHO press release (8/10).

11 Aug 2010

NIAID launches clinical trials of dengue vaccine

After more than a decade of development, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has started clinical trials to test a vaccine to protect against the dengue virus, a product researchers hope may one day "help prevent a disease to which 2.5 billion people are exposed," CIDRAP News reports (Roos, 8/9).

11 Aug 2010

Agencies probe Merck for foreign anti-bribery law violations

Merck, the second biggest international drug maker, is being investigated by two U.S. federal agencies for potentially breaking anti-bribery laws in foreign countries, The Associated Press reports.

11 Aug 2010

State News: Ex-Anthem Blue Cross president speaks out; Clinics to fill in N.M. primary care gap

The Los Angeles Times: "The abrupt resignation last month of Anthem Blue Cross' president is offering a glimpse of an internal struggle that has roiled California's largest for-profit health insurer for months. Leslie Margolin was the public face of Anthem this year when it sought to raise individual insurance rates as much as 39%.

11 Aug 2010

Opinions: HIV prevention research; Foreign aid; Sanitation; Aid, self-reliance

"Microbicides, vaccines and other new approaches will one day join proven HIV-prevention strategies, including condoms, male circumcision and clean needles. How soon that day comes will depend on whether funders and the scientific community can develop the more collaborative approaches to HIV prevention research needed to address this fast-moving epidemic," Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise leaders Alan Bernstein, executive director, and Peter Piot, chair, write in a Globe and Mail opinion piece.

11 Aug 2010

Today's Opinions and Editorials: Bringing down health care costs; More on the Medicare trustees report

Short of transforming the medical payment system, can we bring down health care costs by feasible fixes? Yes, by reducing the number of services that must be covered by every insurance policy and requiring higher copayments for patients using the highest cost providers (Robert Pozen, 8/10).

11 Aug 2010

CADTH Review Panel releases recommendations for Biologic Response Modifier Agents for Adults with RA

The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health's (CADTH) Therapeutic Review Panel released last week their recommendations for Biologic Response Modifier Agents for Adults with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).

10 Aug 2010

Henry Schein announces new $400 million private placement shelf facilities

Henry Schein, Inc., the largest provider of health care products and services to office-based practitioners, today announced that it has entered into new $400 million private placement shelf facilities with two insurance companies.

10 Aug 2010

NeuroMetrix second-quarter total revenues decrease to $3.9 million

NeuroMetrix, Inc., a health care company transforming patient care through neurotechnology, today announced its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2010.

10 Aug 2010

First Edition: August 10, 2010

In today's news, the House is back in town... though just for a day. Lawmakers will consider a state aid package that includes $16 billion in federal Medicaid assistance.

10 Aug 2010

UHC awards 3-year single-source agreement for support services to Sodexo

The University HealthSystem Consortium today announced that it has awarded a 3-year single-source agreement for support services to Sodexo, Inc., based in Gaithersburg, Md. The contract became effective on August 1, 2010, and includes two 1-year renewal periods.

10 Aug 2010

Vanguard adds Arizona Heart Hospital to Abrazo Health Care system

Vanguard Health Systems announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of the Arizona Heart Hospital from a venture that includes MedCath and local physicians.

10 Aug 2010

CQ Weekly reports on advocates' response to Obama administration's domestic, global HIV/AIDS efforts

CQ Weekly examines how HIV/AIDS advocates are "[i]Increasingly dissatisfied with [President Barack] Obama's approach, both at home and abroad." According to the article, some advocates say that Obama and congressional Democrats "have failed to show the political will and marshal the necessary resources" to fight HIV/AIDS.

10 Aug 2010

Study: Training reduces occupational injuries among home health aides

Training can alleviate some of the pain that occupational injuries bring to the long-term care industry, according to Penn State researchers. The study looked at injuries among home health aides.

10 Aug 2010

DSS research survey reveals relationship between engagements, health literacy

DSS Research, the leader in market research for the health insurance industry, developed a proprietary set of metrics that gauge the level of engagement in health care on the part of the consumer. This quarter we added extra questions to further test the relationship between different literacy measures and the level of engagement amongst commercial and Medicare populations and the uninsured.

10 Aug 2010