Newsletter, What's Going On, May 24, 2011
HAPPENING THIS WEEK— The House returns to D.C. and is expected to consider H.R. 1216, the bill to convert funding of graduate medical education from direct appropriations to authorized appropriations… The Senate is in session and expected to take up the House budget after it wraps up work on the Patriot Act extension… The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee looks at selling insurance across state lines in a Wednesday hearing… POLITICO Pulse and Peter VanVranken.
The Vermont Health Reform bill is due to be signed this Thursday.
Last week it was the report that many well-known clinics (Mayo, Cleveland, Geisinger) found Accountable Care Organizations impractical. See also. This week, Administration Offers New Path For ACOs.
Wall Street journal Health Blog: Employers will likely face health-care cost increases of 8.5% in 2012, but they’ll mitigate that burden by pushing more costs onto employees and making other changes to benefits, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report finds.
Kaiser Health News: What Medicaid Cuts Will Mean For Seniors And Others With Disabilities. While Medicaid was created mostly to provide medical care to low-income moms and their kids, two out of every three Medicaid dollars is spent on the elderly and disabled. Howard Gleckman.
PNHP Blog: How Intermountain Trimmed Health Care Costs Through Robust Quality Improvement Efforts. Editor’s note: One of the better articles I’ve seen this year, possibly because findings were unexpected, well-documented and of the sort that should guide policy.
Dr. Donald Light (and here) is presently a visiting professor at Stanford University, teaching the course: International Health Policy: Advanced Health Care Systems (How did other affluent countries attain universal health care and manage challenges of technology, recessions, and rising chronicity?) This is the syllabus for the course (.pdf), including required and recommended readings. Don McCanne
Kaiser Health News staff writer Shefali S. Kulkarni, working in collaboration with The Washington Post, reports: "Cash-strapped states across the country are scaling back efforts to provide life-saving medicines to HIV patients. (Kulkarni, 5/22). Editor note: Alabama is among the states cutting medications to AIDS patients.
ACP Advocate: No States Opt for New Medicaid Health Home Program An optional program encouraging states to coordinate and integrate care for Medicaid patients with chronic conditions has drawn no participants nearly five months after its implementation.
NPR: Who Pays For Unintended Pregnancies? While some states and the federal government debate whether to halt funding of Planned Parenthood…, a new study finds that the cost of unintended pregnancies is large, and much of the bill -- about $11 billion per year -- goes to government programs and ultimately taxpayers. (Rovner, 5/19).
The Boston Globe: Advocates Ask Judge To Order Full Benefits For Immigrants Advocates today asked a single justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to declare the state's exclusion of thousands of legal immigrants from subsidized health coverage unconstitutional. (Lazar, 5/23). Kaiser Health News. Editor's note: these are legal immigrants denied health care coverage.
Democracy for America, the organization created by Howard Dean, periodically holds “internet night schools.” Free interactive training sessions. The next sessions begin Wednesday, May 25, at 8:30 PM Eastern. The topic for the first of three sessions is Recruiting Candidates.
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Thursday, May 26, 2011. 8 PM. CST PNHP Leader/Activist Conference Call. Call me for the number and access code.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011. Please join NAHA (North Alabama Healthcare for All), for a fun lunch with no agenda, just some good discussion. Wednesday before each monthly meeting. This month at Earth Fare, 5900C University Drive NW, Huntsville, AL.
Monday, June 6, 2011 5:30 PM. North Alabama Healthcare for All Monthly Meeting —Huntsville/Madison County Public Library, 901 Monroe Street (downtown). The meeting is in Room AB, on the first floor. After you enter the library’s front door, turn right towards the auditorium.
Thursday, June 16, 2011. @5:30 PM. Third Thursday happy hour (social gathering), at the Preve lounge, upstairs at Monaco, 370 The Bridge Street (6782 Old Madison Pike), Huntsville. Rob Kilpatrick would appreciate knowing you’re coming. rob2020@mac.com
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