New Insurance Rules: Free Preventive Health Care
By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD
July 14, 2010 — A variety of preventive services, from immunizations to colonoscopies, is due to be covered without cost to consumers under new insurance plans as part of the health care reform bill.
The new provisions were announced Wednesday afternoon by first lady Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Under the new rules, if you enroll in a new health plan on or after Sept. 23, 2010, the plan must provide recommended preventive care services without cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles.
Details of the provisions were provided at a news teleconference by Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House director of health care reform, and Stephanie Cutter, assistant to the president for special projects.
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U.S. scores dead last again in healthcare study
(Reuters) – Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries — Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found.
“As an American it just bothers me that with all of our know-how, all of our wealth, that we are not assuring that people who need healthcare can get it,” Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Previous reports by the nonprofit Fund, which conducts research into healthcare performance and which promotes changes in the U.S. system, have been heavily used by policymakers and politicians pressing for healthcare reform.
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Cancer survivors skipping medical care
By Trisha Henry
CNN Medical Producer
Cancer survivors are more likely to forgo or delay medical treatment because of health care costs, according to a new study published in the journal Cancer.
Even though it puts their long-term health and well-being at risk, “two million U.S. cancer survivors did not get one or more medical services because of financial concerns,” says study author Dr. Kathryn Weaver of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. In general, she says, cancer survivors under the age of 65 were almost twice as likely to delay or forgo all types of care, compared with adults with no cancer history in the same age group.
Hispanic cancer survivors were most likely to skip treatment according to the study. Hispanic and African American cancer survivors were more likely than whites to leave prescriptions unfilled or to forgo needed dental care.
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Medicare to revisit coverage of anemia drugs
(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said on Wednesday it is reviewing its coverage of anemia drugs used to treat patients with kidney disease.
The drugs, Epogen and Aranesp made by Amgen Inc and Procit made by Johnson & Johnson, have come under increased scrutiny after data from trials showed they could raise the risk of heart problems.
The move was expected after the agency convened a panel of experts earlier this year who concluded that the drugs, erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, could harm patients with chronic kidney disease, RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee said.
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Americans get most radiation from medical scans
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE
The Associated Press
Monday, June 14, 2010; 4:53 AM
– We fret about airport scanners, power lines, cell phones and even microwaves. It’s true that we get too much radiation. But it’s not from those sources – it’s from too many medical tests.
Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, even more than folks in other rich countries. The U.S. accounts for half of the most advanced procedures that use radiation, and the average American’s dose has grown sixfold over the last couple of decades.
Too much radiation raises the risk of cancer. That risk is growing because people in everyday situations are getting imaging tests far too often. Like the New Hampshire teen who was about to get a CT scan to check for kidney stones until a radiologist, Dr. Steven Birnbaum, discovered he’d already had 14 of these powerful X-rays for previous episodes. Adding up the total dose, “I was horrified” at the cancer risk it posed, Birnbaum said.
After his own daughter, Molly, was given too many scans following a car accident, Birnbaum took action: He asked the two hospitals where he works to watch for any patients who had had 10 or more CT scans, or patients under 40 who had had five – clearly dangerous amounts. They found 50 people over a three-year period, including a young woman with 31 abdominal scans.
When other radiologists tell him they’ve never found such a case, Birnbaum replies: “That tells me you haven’t looked.”
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Gates Foundation gives $1.5 bln for women’s health
(Reuters) – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $1.5 billion on Monday in a joint push with the United Nations to improve the health of women and children, while launching a lobbying effort to get governments and other non-profit groups on board.
The program aims to cut across the “silos” of health initiatives focused on one thing — AIDS, for example, or nutrition — and get broader initiatives into place.
“That is in addition to grants that we already make in vaccines, diarrhea, malaria,” Melinda Gates told reporters.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would try to focus the Group of 20 meeting in Toronto later this month on the subject, adding the goal is to raise $15 billion.
“We may need an additional $45 billion by 2015,” Ban said.
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Big Gains for Young People in Health Law
After Eric Heininger left his job (and medical insurance) to follow his girlfriend to graduate school in New Haven, he wanted to get a physical, so he volunteered to take part in a medical study.
He endured three days of exercise regimens, blood tests and blood pressure checks before he was accepted to the healthy comparison group in the trial. “So I knew I was healthy,” he said.
But when Mr. Heininger, 24, developed a high fever in March after traveling to Haiti on a relief mission, free care was not so easy to come by. So like many young people, he waited it out, worrying for almost a week that he might have picked up a dangerous tropical disease.
He is not unusual. Almost one-third of the 46 million uninsured in the United States are 19 to 29 — the age group that is the most likely to be without coverage, since so many work in part-time or entry-level jobs.
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Overuse of Antibiotics Spurs Vicious Cycle
(Reuters) – Patients whose doctors over-prescribe antibiotics may develop drug resistance that lasts up to a year, putting them and the population at risk when more serious treatment is needed, scientists said on Wednesday.
The more antibiotics are prescribed for coughs and flu-like illnesses, or urine infections, the more bacteria become resistant in a vicious cycle, said British researchers who analyzed 24 previous studies of antibiotic resistance.
“The effect is greatest in the month immediately after treatment, but may last for up to a year, and this residual effect may be a driver for high levels of resistance in the community,” said Alastair Hay, a consultant senior lecturer in primary health care at Bristol University, who led the research.
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Tax Credit to Pay Third of Small-Business Health Cost
By Drew Armstrong
May 17 (Bloomberg) — As many as four million small businesses in the U.S. may qualify for tax credits to recover more than a third of the cost of providing medical care for employees, under a program created by the health overhaul law.
Businesses with less than 25 full-time employees each will be eligible, according to a U.S. Treasury Department fact sheet made public today. Enterprises that qualify will get 35 percent of the cost of employee health-care premiums reimbursed by the government, beginning this year, and 50 percent starting in 2014, the fact sheet said.
The health law was signed in March by President Barack Obama. The administration estimates the credit will save small businesses $40 billion through 2019. For example, a restaurant with 10 employees, each earning an average of $25,000 a year, might offer insurance costing $6,000 a worker. The credit in that case would be $21,000, the fact sheet said. A tax credit reduces liability for federal tax.
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