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Senator calls on President Bush to do more to improve veterans' health care

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Saturday called promises by President Bush to provide adequate health care to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "hollow talk" and said the Bush administration must do more to address the issue, the AP/Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. During the Democratic weekly radio address, Murray said that Bush has not requested adequate funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

5 Nov 2007

World-famous Papworth heart transplant hospital in trouble

A hospital in Britain which has been at the forefront of heart transplant surgery ever since it carried out the UK's first successful operation in 1979, is in trouble.

5 Nov 2007

Medicare lacks tools, incentives to enforce evidence-based coverage policies

According to new research at the University of Minnesota, Medicare lacks sufficient information in most cases to apply a policy and does not have the resources or incentives to acquire the information.

2 Nov 2007

Medicaid pays for one-third of drug abuse hospitalizations

Medicaid paid for more than one-third of the 1.3 million hospital stays related to prescription or illegal drug abuse in 2005, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

2 Nov 2007

New tool helps pharmacies cater for customers with poor health literacy

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality today announced two new tools to help pharmacies provide better quality services to people with limited health literacy.

1 Nov 2007

Lobbyists push lawmakers to act quickly on Medicare physician payment rate fix

Physician groups are pushing members of Congress to work quickly on passing legislation to avert a 10% Medicare physician reimbursement rate cut scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2008, The Hill reports (Young, The Hill, 10/31).

31 Oct 2007

Bush threatens to veto combined appropriations bill

President Bush on Tuesday said he would veto a more than $700 billion package under consideration by Democrats that includes the fiscal year 2008 Defense (HR 3222), Labor-HHS-Education (HR 3043) and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (HR 2642) appropriations bills, The Hill reports (Soraghan et al., The Hill, 10/31).

31 Oct 2007

Congressional Democrats consider combining labor-HHS-education, veterans, Pentagon spending bills

Congressional Democrats have begun to "prep for a pre-Thanksgiving budget showdown" with President Bush, as lawmakers seek to finalize a more than $700 billion package that includes the fiscal year 2008 Defense (HR 3222), Labor-HHS-Education (HR 3043) and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (HR 2642) appropriations bills, CongressDaily reports (Cohn, CongressDaily, 10/29).

30 Oct 2007

Massachusetts increases efforts to enroll low-income residents in partially subsidized health coverage by Dec. 31 deadline

Massachusetts health care officials this month are boosting efforts to enroll low-income residents in subsidized health insurance plans as the state approaches the Dec. 31 deadline for all residents to obtain coverage or face tax penalties, the Boston Globe reports.

30 Oct 2007

Efforts needed to address financial stability of entitlement programs

The "demands imposed by the retirement of millions of baby boomers will consume the federal budget and blight the prospects of the next generations" without efforts to address problems with the long-term financial stability of Medicare and other entitlement programs, columnist David Broder writes in the Washington Post.

30 Oct 2007

Cigna reach agreement on physician ranking system

New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) on Monday said that Cigna has agreed to provide its members with more information on how it ranks physicians, the AP/Hartford Courant reports. Cuomo said the deal could set a national standard for physician ranking systems (Bauman, AP/Hartford Courant, 10/29).

30 Oct 2007

Study finds increase of avoidable hospitalizations in Washington, D.C.

The rate of avoidable hospitalizations in Washington, D.C., increased from 39.1 per 1,000 adults ages 40 to 64 in 2004 to 43.4 in 2006, and from 8.9 per 1,000 children younger than age 18 to 12.1 during the same period, according to a report released Thursday by RAND, the Washington Post reports.

29 Oct 2007

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report reports on Presidential campaigns related to health care

Forty-six percent of U.S. adults who responded to a recent survey conducted by Scripps Howard and Ohio University said that Democrats were more likely to improve access to health care than Republicans, Scripps Howard/Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The survey, which included responses from 811 adults nationwide collected from Sept 24. to Oct. 10, has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

29 Oct 2007

Baltimore Sun examines U.S. health care system, efforts for reform

The Baltimore Sun on Sunday examined how the lack of progress toward the "goal" of ensuring that all U.S. residents have affordable health coverage "is causing a slow-motion health care crisis that is already threatening the well-being of millions."

29 Oct 2007

UnitedHealth concurs with House panel that access to dental care lacking for child Medicaid beneficiaries in Maryland

UnitedHealth Group Senior Vice President Judah Sommer in a letter to members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Domestic Policy agreed with a panel finding that thousands of Maryland children enrolled in the company's Medicaid plan were unable to receive dental care after initially denying the claims, CQ HealthBeat reports (Carey, CQ HealthBeat, 10/25).

29 Oct 2007

UAW members at Chrysler approve four-year contract with voluntary employees' beneficiary association

United Auto Workers officials on Saturday said that Chrysler Group employees represented by the union approved a four-year contract that will establish a voluntary employees' beneficiary association, the Detroit Free Press reports (Higgins, Detroit Free Press, 10/28).

29 Oct 2007

Foreign doctors in Britain in danger of being made scapegoats

The British Medical Association (BMA) says that foreign doctors already working in the UK must not be made scapegoats because of government plans to reduce medical immigration.

28 Oct 2007

Errors by hospital residents often down to poor teamwork, communication

Physicians-in-training are highly vulnerable to making medical errors that stem from teamwork breakdowns, especially a lack of supervision by experienced staff, according to a new study funded by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

22 Oct 2007

Six Sigma practices may provide significant benefits for hospitals

Although Six Sigma practices are widely used in the manufacturing industry, the performance improvement system also may provide significant benefits for hospitals, medical professionals, and patients.

22 Oct 2007

$6.8 million grant to help UTEP tackle Hispanic health disparities

The Hispanic Health Disparities Research Center at the University of Texas at El Paso has received a $6.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health that will significantly advance the center's research in helping eliminate racial and ethnic health inequalities across the nation.

22 Oct 2007