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Costs for long-term care rise while home health care costs remain fairly stable

"Institutional costs for long term care continued to post big increases last year even as the economy sputtered along, according to the seventh annual Cost of Care survey from Genworth Financial, a major seller of long term care insurance. The good news in the survey is that costs for in-home care -- where nearly 80 percent of people prefer being cared for -- have risen very little during the past five years."

29 Apr 2010

UnitedHealthcare ends use of rescissions ahead of implementation date

UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group company, has ended its limited use of rescissions effective immediately, except in cases of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of material fact. This change in policy is well ahead of the September 23, 2010 implementation date as required in the recently passed health reform legislation.

29 Apr 2010

Study finds WIC program has moderate effect on birth outcomes, but more research is needed

A new study that looked at the effect of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) to determine the effect on various birth outcomes found that the overall effects were only moderate.

29 Apr 2010

Elderly and whites seek alternative therapies for pain relief: Study

In a University of Michigan Health System study, 1 out of 3 patients with chronic pain reported using complementary and alternative medicine therapies such as acupuncture and chiropractic visits for pain relief.

29 Apr 2010

WellPoint profits rise 51 percent amid scrutiny on several fronts

WellPoint, the U.S. health insurer with the biggest membership, announced Wednesday that its first-quarter earnings rose 51 percent compared to last year and were boosted by a mild flu season, The Wall Street Journal reports. Medical membership fell 2.1% to 33.8 million as of March 31 from a year earlier but rose by 165,000 during the quarter. The company trimmed its year-end medical membership projection to 33.1 million from 33.3 million."

29 Apr 2010

Small business owners have mixed reviews on health law's tax credits

Kaiser Health News staff writer Andrew Villegas reports: "Everyone wants a tax credit, right? Maybe not. Employers, particularly small businesses, are fretting over provisions in the health overhaul they say could burden their companies.

29 Apr 2010

Nearly all U.S. states offer HPV vaccine to adolescent girls in juvenile justice facilities: Report

Nearly all U.S. states offer the human papillomavirus vaccine to adolescent girls who have been arrested or detained, according to a new report from The Miriam Hospital and Brown University. The study, published in the May issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, offers the first nationwide review of HPV vaccination practices among juvenile justice facilities.

29 Apr 2010

Former U.S. Secretaries of State urge Congress not to cut international affairs budget

"As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins mark up today of the first foreign affairs authorization bill in five years, all eight living former U.S. Secretaries of State have written a letter [.pdf] urging Congress not to cut the international affairs budget," Politico's Laura Rozen writes on her blog.

29 Apr 2010

Canadian leaders focus on hunger, disease prevention at G8 meeting

G8 countries should make use of low-cost, effective tools to prevent hunger, disease and premature deaths among women and children in developing countries, Bev Oda, Canada's international cooperation minister, said on Tuesday at the opening of a meeting of G8 development ministers in Halifax, the Toronto Sun reports (Payton, 4/27).

29 Apr 2010

US Senate concentrates on benefits of new wireless medical technology: EHSI

Emerging Healthcare Solutions, Inc. applauded news that the US Senate Committee on Aging was beginning to concentrate on the benefits of new wireless medical technology, a sector that includes the Company's MedAnywhere iPhone application which is currently in development. The Committee began the review last week.

29 Apr 2010

Dental clinic reveals need in Los Angeles area while North Carolina County may cut dental care for many Medicaid patients

More than 100 who had waited for care were asked to return next week for services. In all, volunteers saw 1,157 patients, 64 of them minors. Overwhelmed by demand for dental services, organizers of a massive free mobile health clinic asked some patients who had Tuesday appointments to return next week, a hitch in an otherwise smooth first day at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

29 Apr 2010

Overhaul may cost drugmakers more than expected

Bloomberg BusinessWeek: The health overhaul legislation will likely cost drugmakers $25 billion more than the $80 billion the industry anticipated when it agreed to back the Democratic-led effort, according to Wall Street analysts. "The extra costs will come from expanding drug rebates through Medicaid, the U.S. insurance program for the poor, [Leerink Swann & Co executive] John L. Sullivan said today at a Bloomberg conference in Chicago."

29 Apr 2010

China lifts decades-old HIV/AIDS travel ban

Late Tuesday, China's State Council lifted a decades-old restriction that banned foreigners with HIV/AIDS from entering the country, Reuters reports (Buckley, 4/27). The amended rules, which appear on the government website, also lift a travel ban on foreigners with other sexually transmitted diseases and leprosy, and "narrow the travel restriction on people with tuberculosis, to those with an infectious form of the lung disease," according to Bloomberg Businessweek (Randall, 4/28).

29 Apr 2010

Young adults seeking coverage on parents' plans face obstacles

Young adults and their parents eager to take advantage of a new law that will allow parents of children up to age 26 to keep their children on their health plans are facing obstacles in learning even exactly when they'll be eligible.

29 Apr 2010

Renowned cardiologists to discuss latest research on Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy at HCMA symposium

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), the genetic disease in which the muscle of the heart thickens in the absence of an apparent cause, is the leading cause of sudden death in children and young adults. HCM accounts for 40 percent of all deaths on athletic playing fields across the U.S.

29 Apr 2010

New research indicates Canadians live longer than Americans

Compared to their neighbours south of the border, Canadians live longer, healthier lives. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Population Health Metrics has found this disparity between the two countries, suggesting that America's lack of universal health care and lower levels of social and economic equality are to blame.

29 Apr 2010

NIH approves federal funding for 13 more stem cell lines

The Washington Post: Thirteen more lines of human embryonic stem cells are officially eligible for federal funding, since being approved by the National Institutes of Health. The Obama administration announced shortly after the President took office that restrictions would be lifted on the use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research.

29 Apr 2010

Uninsured patients less likely to receive critical care services

Among the general U.S. population, people who are uninsured are about half as likely to receive critical care services as those with insurance, according to systematic review of the literature by the American Thoracic Society's Health Disparities Group.

29 Apr 2010

Report: Conditions in Zambian prisons fueling spread of HIV, TB

"Conditions in Zambia's prisons are so overcrowded and medical care so inadequate that they are breeding grounds for disease and pose a serious threat to public health, says a new report by Human Rights Watch, produced in association with the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa and the Prisons Care and Counselling Association," BMJ News reports.

29 Apr 2010

Imaging costs for Medicare cancer patients on the rise

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association analyzed data from Medicare cancer patients to determine the change in imaging use for this group.

29 Apr 2010