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Managing distance and aging parents' care

The Associated Press explores the difficulties involved in being a long-distance caregiver for aging parents and how demographic trends fuel these challenges.

27 Jan 2012

Doctors press Boehner to stop mandated insurance code switch

The American Medical Association opposes implementation of the coding system known as ICD-10, saying it would require physician offices to deal with an estimated 68,000 insurance codes -- five times more than the current 13,000.

27 Jan 2012

House GOP renews demand for Obama's health reform-related memos

The New Yorker on Monday published an in-depth look at previously unreleased White House documents, including some related to negotiations surrounding the development and passage of the health law.

27 Jan 2012

CMS officials focus on health care innovation

At yesterday's 'Summit,' officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services advanced the notion that finding new ways to improve quality of care is also the best way to address high health care costs.

27 Jan 2012

Moody's retains negative investment outlook on non-profit hospitals

Moody's Investors Service said its outlook for not-for-profit hospitals remains negative as weak revenue growth continues. The ratings agency called revenue projections for the coming 18 months "modest" in a newly released report and described sluggish revenue growth as the "single most significant challenge hospitals currently face."

27 Jan 2012

Sorin opens ACCESS training center in Clamart

Sorin Group, a global medical company and a leader in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, announced today the opening of its Advanced Center for Continuous Education on Scientific Solutions - ACCESS - training center in Clamart.

27 Jan 2012

Watching transformation of the Global Fund on its 10th anniversary

"Are we watching the rebirth of the troubled Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, perhaps in a new, more U.S.-flavored guise?" Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley asks in her "Global Health Blog."

27 Jan 2012

Research!America profiles various U.S. states regarding global health R&D

This post in the Global Health Technologies Coalition's (GHTC) "Breakthroughs" blog is the first of a series in which Research!America, a member of the GHTC, will profile various U.S. states based on an analyses the organization conducted "to measure the economic impact of [research & development (R&D)], highlighting the benefits of it for states across the nation," and to examine "what the [U.S.] is doing to advance global health R&D and why our continued support of such work is crucial for the health and prosperity of our future."

27 Jan 2012

Survey: Mass. health law increased coverage, but struggles on cost

The journal Health Affairs has a new study analyzing the effects of the 2006 Massachusetts health insurance law.

27 Jan 2012

First Edition: January 27, 2012

Now on Kaiser Health News' blog, Christian Torres reports on a speech given at the Care Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C., by Marilyn Tavenner, the president's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, about the health law's accomplishments: "Tavenner will likely make some of the same arguments for the law and CMS initiatives when – or if – she encounters a grilling at her yet-to-be scheduled Senate confirmation hearing.

27 Jan 2012

State of the Union redux: Reading between the lines for health policy impact

News reports analyze why President Barack Obama gave only scant reference to the health law in his State of the Union address, how his push for regulatory reform may play out in the health care sector and how the speech represents his return to familiar themes.

27 Jan 2012

An examination of the premium support concept

Henry Aaron, who helped create the concept of premium support back in 1995, doesn't like its latest incarnation: Wyden-Ryan. Joseph Antos says the bipartisan odd couple has given Medicare - and taxpayers and beneficiaries - a real chance at fiscal sustainability. Two politely dueling essays in this week's New England Journal of Medicine dissect the proposal made by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.

27 Jan 2012

More than 40% of world's population at risk of dengue, WHO fact sheet states

"The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades," the WHO writes in an updated fact sheet about dengue and severe dengue published on the organization's website. According to the fact sheet, "Over 2.5 billion people -- over 40 percent of the world's population -- are now at risk from dengue," and "WHO currently estimates there may be 50-100 million dengue infections worldwide every year."

27 Jan 2012

Medicaid news: Penn. enrollment up; Fla. hospitals protesting cuts; Fraud in Kansas

The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare's stepped-up efforts over the summer to target waste, fraud, and abuse quickly bore fruit in the fall. Adult Medicaid enrollment alone was down 109,000 through November. … Now, DPW has suddenly changed its reporting method. Revised calculations show a decline of just 6,000 participants for the same period. And when December is added in, enrollment is up by 23,000 since August.

27 Jan 2012

Republican leadership prepares 'replace' plan should Supreme Court strike health law

Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, said Republicans will be ready with a replacement package if the health law is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Also in the news, CQ HealthBeat reports the insurance industry expects to see legislation in the Senate to exempt brokers' fees from the medical-loss ratio. Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Kyl, R- Ariz., wants to use war savings to pay for the Medicare "doc fix."

27 Jan 2012

Bird flu investigator says continuation of research remains 'urgent' despite moratorium

Research into transmissible bird flu strains remains "urgent" despite flu investigators' recent declaration of a "60-day moratorium on avian flu transmission because of the current controversy," Yoshihiro Kawaoka of Tokyo University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, "a lead researcher on one of two recent studies showing how H5N1 can be transmitted through airborne droplets" among ferrets, writes in a commentary published Wednesday in the journal Nature, Reuters reports.

27 Jan 2012

Addressing misperceptions about foreign aid spending amid primary season campaigning

In this post on the Council on Foreign Relation's "The Internationalist" blog, Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow and director of the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance, addresses what he calls myths about foreign aid amid this year's primary season, writing, "GOP presidential candidates regularly bash it, echoing 'Mr. Republican' Robert Taft -- who dismissed overseas assistance more than six decades ago as 'pouring money down a rat hole.'"

27 Jan 2012

Responding to emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis

This post in the Center for Strategic and International Studies' "Smart Global Health" blog examines drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), stating, "[S]ince the recent outbreak of the so-called totally drug-resistant tuberculosis (TDR-TB) in India, TB has a new face."

27 Jan 2012

Reflecting on Global Fund's decade of accomplishment, looking forward to challenges ahead

"This week marks the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- the world's most powerful tool for improving health -- at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland," Natasha Bilimoria, president of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, writes in this post in the AlertNet "Insight" blog.

27 Jan 2012

Global economic downturn may thwart progress in fight against poverty, disease, Gates says

"The global economic downturn and the euro-zone crisis may stand in the way of efforts to reduce poverty and disease around the world," Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Wednesday in a talk at the London School of Economics sponsored by the Global Poverty Project, Bloomberg reports.

27 Jan 2012