The universal health insurance package that one chamber of California's legislature passed last week looks a lot like the one Massachusetts put in place a year earlier. Every resident will be required to have insurance, every employer must pitch in, and no one can be denied coverage because of a preexisting condition.
The 19-year-old campaign to eradicate polio is celebrating recent progress and an unexpected infusion of cash. But experts are realizing that they will not be able to end the expensive and laborious efforts to control the virus anytime soon. It is now clear that the virus that causes polio could reemerge years, and possibly even decades, after the last case is found.
January will mark the start of the third year of Medicare Part D, the government prescription drug benefit. But after two years, many consumers still find the drug benefit confusing. Consumers Union recently said a government-administered benefit would save millions compared with the current system in which drug and insurance companies run private plans. This Q&A article features Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
In the British Medical Journal, researchers looked into several common misconceptions, from the belief that a person should drink eight glasses of water per day to the notion that reading in low light ruins your eyesight. Popular culture is loaded with myths and half-truths. Most are harmless, but when doctors start believing medical myths, perhaps it's time to worry.
The treatment setting for alcoholism is in for a major shift from specialize clinics to primary care offices because of new research and medications, according to a report in the December 5 Journal of the American Medical Association. But if the promise of office-based treatment of alcoholism is to become a reality, the nation's 337,000 general-practice physicians--and the healthcare system as a whole--will have to undergo some transformation themselves, addiction experts say.
A Friday funeral was set for the Northridge, CA, teenager who died last week after her insurer refused to pay for a liver transplant and then reconsidered. Cigna HealthCare, the girl's health plan, stood by its initial decision. In a memo distributed the media, the president of Philadelphia-based Cigna said the company has a record of approving coverage for more than 90 percent of all transplants requested by its members, as well as more than 90 percent of the liver transplants.
A year that began with great ambition for major expansions of health insurance in Sacramento and in other state capitals is ending with considerable uncertainty. The governors of California, Illinois and Pennsylvania proposed sweeping plans to restructure healthcare this year. But none will finish 2007 with bills passed and signed. In each state, the initiatives confronted entrenched opposition from insurance and other business lobbies that made it far more difficult to build a consensus for change than in the smaller New England states that acted in recent years.
Medical centers are rushing to add the latest weapons against cancer--nuclear particle accelerators, formerly used only for exotic physics research. Experts say the push reflects the best and worst of the nation's market-based healthcare system. Critics say these medical centers are pursing the latest, most expensive treatments without much evidence of improved health, even as soaring costs add to the nation's economic burden. Nuclear particle accelerators are said to be more precise than the X-rays that are typically used for radiation therapy, with fewer side effects and potentially a higher cure rate.
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee has another union representation victory after nurses at the 171-bed Whittier Hospital Medical Center in the Los Angeles area voted to join the union. The CNA will now now represent 300 Whittier Hospital RNs in contract negotiations.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas has ended an 11-year legal dispute by agreeing to a $4.5 million settlement that includes $500,000 for indigent care to three hospitals.