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Public option might be only a minor player in changing health care

Kaiser Health News staff writers Eric Pianin, Mary Agnes Carey and Julie Appleby combine efforts to provide this analysis of the reach of the public option in terms of its potential impact on the health care system.

3 Nov 2009

With state budgets tight, services are cut; Kansas looks to avoid mandates

California cut program budgets aimed at providing care for the poor while in Wyoming, the programs themselves are forced to close their doors because of a funding shortfall. In Kansas, lawmakers are examining — ahead of final consideration of health care reform in Congress — how they can shield themselves from health care mandates to carry insurance.

3 Nov 2009

WHO, UNICEF launch 6-year $39B plan to prevent, treat pneumonia; World Pneumonia Day coverage

To mark the first World Pneumonia Day on Monday, the WHO and UNICEF launched a $39 billion Global Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP) aimed at preventing 5.3 million child deaths from the disease by 2015, the Associated Press reports (Cheng, 11/1).

3 Nov 2009

Senate, House split over taxes to pay for health overhaul

A health care overhaul that would expand health insurance coverage to millions isn't free, and in addition to proposed cuts, bills would raise revenue with taxes and fees. "The typical family would be spared higher taxes from the House Democratic plan to overhaul health care, and their low-income neighbors could come out ahead," the Associated Press/Boston Globe reports.

3 Nov 2009

American College of Physicians sends letter to House leaders voicing support for H.R. 3962 health bill

The American College of Physicians (ACP) today sent a letter to House leaders voicing the College's support for key policies in the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

3 Nov 2009

Washington Post examines how Altman 'revitalized' the Kaiser Family Foundation mission

Drew Altman landed at the Kaiser Family Foundation in 1990 with a huge mandate: Rebuild the sleepy grant-making organization, shake up its staff, and revitalize its mission. Two decades later, the chief executive and president has positioned the nonpartisan operation as a leading voice and vast repository for facts and figures on health-care issues and the reform debate.

3 Nov 2009

Swine flu vaccine supply expected to increase 'in short order'

A senior adviser to President Barack Obama says the government "overpromised" with the swine flu vaccine but that the vaccine supply would catch up with the demand within a week. Meanwhile, a health group established to monitor the vaccine's safety will begin work this week.

3 Nov 2009

Aetna inks three-year agreement with HHC

Aetna announced today that it has reached an agreement with the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) to offer Aetna members in New York City in-network access to in-patient and out-patient services from HHC’s 11 acute care hospitals, six Diagnostic and Treatment Centers and four nursing homes.

2 Nov 2009

House Democratic leaders pushing for vote on health reform

Speaker Nancy Pelosi could hold a vote on the final House of Representatives health care reform legislation this week.

2 Nov 2009

GOP is preparing its strategy, version of health overhaul legislation

The Republican Party is set to reveal an alternative health care reform bill to the Democratic ones in Congress just as the House prepares to take up Democratic legislation.

2 Nov 2009

Zuma calls for renewed effort in fight against HIV/AIDS

South African President Jacob Zuma on Thursday called for a renewed effort in the country's fight against HIV/AIDS, the Star/Independent Online reports. During a speech to South Africa's National Council of Provinces, which also addressed the country's economy, Zuma pointed to what he called "chilling statistics" reflective of the "devastating impact HIV and AIDS" is having on the country (du Plessis, 10/30).

2 Nov 2009

Also in Global Health News: Undernutrition in Afghanistan; Namibia's HIV clinics, outreach programs

A Lancet World Report examines the deadly toll undernutrition is having on the people of Afghanistan, where the "issues of poverty and undernutrition have received curiously little attention: about a third of the population, more than 7 million people, are food insecure, according the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).

2 Nov 2009

Individual, employer mandates prove thorny topics for lawmakers

When President Clinton proposed requiring all Americans to buy insurance in the early 1990s, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office called it "an unprecedented form of federal action," adding that "[t]he government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States," the Los Angeles Times reports.

2 Nov 2009

AllOne Health partners with Connectyx Technologies Holdings to provide health information on the Web

AllOne Health(SM) and Connectyx Technologies Holdings Group, Inc. (Pink Sheets: CTYX) today announced a partnership that will allow consumers to view and manage health information on the Web, via portable USB storage devices and through their mobile phones, with one, secure step. A package including both companies' products will be sold in retail stores across the U.S. in December.

2 Nov 2009

John C. Lincoln Hospital first to use commercially-available LungPoint system

Broncus Technologies, Inc., a medical device company focused on developing minimally-invasive innovations for lung diseases, announced today at the American College of Chest Physicians CHEST 2009 meeting that John C. Lincoln Hospital in Phoenix is the first hospital in the U.S. to use the commercially-available LungPoint system.

2 Nov 2009

McCain's health care adviser is losing his own coverage

Sen. John McCain's top health care adviser in the presidential campaign is about to lose his health care coverage, providing a face to a common dilemma.

2 Nov 2009

Insurers, other interest groups prepare for final health reform votes

Insurance companies are arguing that the health reform legislation progressing in Congress would increase premium costs for many Americans. Meanwhile, some of the coalitions have begun to splinter.

2 Nov 2009

A return to the doctor's house call may aid health care reform

Dr. Peter Boling provides house calls for some of Richmond's oldest and sickest patients as a geriatrician and head of general medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. The Associated Press/Richmond Times Dispatch reports that "he is on a mission: To convince Congress that the old-fashioned house call could be a fresh answer to the modern-day health care reform dilemma.

2 Nov 2009

A look at faculty health

On average, research shows, the United States loses the equivalent of at least one entire medical school class each year to suicide1 - as many as 400 physicians. The book Faculty Health in Academic Medicine: Scientists, Physicians, and the Pressures of Success (Humana Press/Springer), by faculty at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and other national medical experts, breaks new ground in a first-of-its-kind look at faculty health.

2 Nov 2009

Today's opinions and editorials

When conservatives scream about socialized medicine and death panels, you should tune them out. But lately conservatives have been making an argument you should hear. It's about whether we can believe Congress when it promises to raise taxes or cut spending--and, as such, whether we can believe that health care reform can actually be fiscally responsible (Jonathan Cohn, 11/2).

2 Nov 2009