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Implementation issues trigger action, analysis

News outlets examine health law issues ranging from how states are planning to market the health plans that will become available this fall to whether accountable care organizations will help control health care costs.

14 Feb 2013

Women raped in war need access to safe abortion

"While there is welcome attention focused on the plight of women and girls raped in war, there are still significant gaps in the international response to this global scourge," Glenys Kinnock, founder and president of One World Action and a board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, writes in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog," adding that women who become pregnant as a result of rape in war need access to safe abortion services.

14 Feb 2013

Blogs address IHME report on global health funding

"Last week, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) released 'Financing for Global Health: The End of the Golden Era?,' its fourth annual report analyzing trends in Development Assistance for Health (DAH) from 1990 through 2009, with estimates through 2011," the Maternal Health Task Force blog reports, noting, "One of the areas where there has been an increase in spending is the overall area of maternal, newborn and child health, including family planning." The blog outlines sections of the report that discuss MNCH funding.

14 Feb 2013

Debating U.N. resolution on universal health coverage

Writing in the "UHC Forward" blog, Nkem Wellington, program officer at the Results for Development Institute (R4D), summarizes a debate that took place on the Performance-Based Financing Community of Practice online discussion forum following the December 12 U.N. General Assembly vote on the "Global health and foreign policy" draft resolution, which focused on universal health coverage (UHC).

14 Feb 2013

Cambodia, China report cases of avian influenza H5N1

"Cambodia reported on Wednesday that another four-year-old girl has contracted avian influenza H5N1, becoming the seventh person who infected the virus in 2013," Xinhua reports.

14 Feb 2013

UNDP administrator calls for 'permanent' focus on NCDs

At the London launch of a Lancet series on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on Monday, U.N. Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark said if NCDs are placed "permanently on the global development agenda, people's lives, opportunities, and future prospects will improve -- thereby advancing sustainable human development overall," Devex's "Development Newswire" blog reports.

14 Feb 2013

State roundup: Ore. considers rural doc loan repayment

Oregon would restore $4 million in the next biennium to fund a loan repayment program that assists primary health care providers willing to work in rural areas, under a bill being pushed by Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton. The program ran for nearly two decades before it was cut in 2009 in the depths of the recession.

14 Feb 2013

Eleventh global case of SARS-linked virus confirmed in U.K.

"British officials say a mysterious virus related to SARS may have spread between humans, as they confirmed the 11th case worldwide of the new coronavirus in a patient who they say probably caught it from a family member," the Associated Press reports.

14 Feb 2013

The Atlantic examines 'paradigm shift' in global health response

"The world has an 'historic opportunity' to contain and end three of humanity's deadliest scourges by focusing on their 'hot zones,' according to Mark Dybul, the newly appointed director of the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria," the Atlantic reports in an article examining a "paradigm shift" in the global health response.

14 Feb 2013

College health plans beginning to accommodate transgender students

Over the last decade, as activists started pushing colleges to accommodate transgender students, they first raised only basic issues, like recognizing a name change or deciding who could use which bathrooms.

14 Feb 2013

State policies, positions on Medicaid expansion continue to take shape

North Carolina will not expand Medicaid coverage under President Barack Obama's signature health care reform law and will play no role in setting up the required health insurance exchange, Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, said on Tuesday.

14 Feb 2013

Study: No link between hospital readmissions and saving patient lives

A Journal of the American Medical Association study released Tuesday has found that higher hospital readmissions don't lead to fewer patient deaths.

14 Feb 2013

More polio workers killed than reported cases of disease, NPR reports

"The global effort to eradicate polio has reached a bizarre stage: More people have been gunned down recently over the disease than actually infected with it," NPR's "Shots" blog reports.

14 Feb 2013

Will more availability of some Medicare therapies spark a budget crisis?

Politico looks at how making some therapies more widely available to Medicare recipients -- as one lawsuit is asking for -- could strain the program's budget. In addition, The Associated Press examines Medicare records to find that monitoring some kidney cancer patients instead of operating could improve their chances to live.

14 Feb 2013

Blogs examine root causes, implications of myths about polio vaccination

Citing a review by Telegraph correspondent Rob Crilly criticizing the film Zero Dark Thirty "for getting its facts wrong about the CIA vaccination campaign that sought to confirm the DNA of Osama bin Laden's children," development blogger Tom Murphy writes in the Humanosphere blog, "Crilly's larger point is to say that the film gives further ammo to polio vaccine conspiracy theorists."

14 Feb 2013

Rubio' repeats GOP calls for overhauling Medicare, other entitlement programs

During his televised speech responding to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also criticized the health law.

14 Feb 2013

As part of 'expansive' agenda, Obama offers support for 'modest' Medicare reforms

In last night's State of the Union address, President Barack Obama offered his take on how the U.S. budget could achieve "fiscal stability" through a mix of Medicare cuts and tax increases; however, he provided few details of what changes to Medicare he found acceptable.

14 Feb 2013

USAID blog reports on India's Call to Action Summit for Child Survival, Development

In a post in USAID's "IMPACTblog," Ariel Pablos-Mendez, assistant administrator for global health at USAID, provides an overview of India's "Call to Action Summit for Child Survival and Development," which took place last week, writing, "Led by India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Summit called for an accelerated response to decrease child mortality across the country."

14 Feb 2013

President Obama delivers SOTU address, mentioning trade agreements, AIDS-free generation

"President Barack Obama outlined an ambitious agenda in his State of the Union address Tuesday that included raising the minimum wage, increasing spending on infrastructure, attacking climate change and passing gun-control legislation," the Wall Street Journal reports.

14 Feb 2013

Viewpoints: Obama prescription for Medicare is 'modest;' GOP doubts entitlement plan is serious

Somewhat more substantively, he called for a larger deficit-reduction deal built around loophole-closing tax reform and what he called "modest" reforms to Medicare and entitlements. In an apparent effort to rally Democrats to this cause, he called on "those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare" to "embrace" reform.

14 Feb 2013