Why Medicaid block grants won ’t work
Medicaid is the largest single health insurance program in the nation, spending more than $500 billion to serve the most vulnerable people with some of the highest need, including children, pregnant mothers, people with disabilities, the poor and the elderly living in nursing homes. Recent proposals to repeal and replace Obamacare – such as the American Health Care Act (AHCA) – would fundamentally change the Medicaid program. Given the size and scope of the program, block grants are an even greater threat to our nation’s health than repeal of Obamacare’s individual marketplace reforms.
Currently, Medicaid is j...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 14, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/megan-douglas" rel="tag" > Megan Douglas, JD < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs
Medical Associations Non-Pulsed by Trump ’ s Withdrawal From the Paris Accord
By DAVID INTROCASO
Climate change, or changes in weather extremes, are having an increasingly harmful effect on human health. Last year, the 20th consecutive year in which the US experienced above average annual temperatures, saw increasing instances of heat related ailments and deaths and increases in related exacerbations of chronic, including cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, respiratory and mental health, conditions as well as the spread of climate change-related food pathogens and vector borne diseases, most recently Zika.
One study estimated that absent any adaptation to climate change or disruption we will see an in...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 13, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Cimate Change Introcaso Paris Accord Tillerson Trump Source Type: blogs
Public Health Funding And OMB Director Mulvaney ’s “Taxpayer First” Test
The first formal budget of the Trump era—billed as a “Taxpayer First” budget—contains some very bad news when it comes to the health of the American public. It proposes dramatic cuts in federal investments that keep us healthy and protected from harm, including a $1.2 billion cut from the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is on top of the catastrophic cuts that will occur with the loss of the Prevention and Public Health Fund if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.
It is the opposite of both what American taxpayers have asked for and what is owed to them.
Office of Management and...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 8, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Edward L. Hunter Tags: Costs and Spending Featured GrantWatch Public Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Chronic Care Consumers Effectiveness Health Philanthropy Health Promotion and Disease PreventionGW vaccines Source Type: blogs
Big Data and the Social Good: The Value for Healthcare Organizations
The following is a guest blog post by Mike Serrano from NETSCOUT.
It’s a well-known fact that Facebook, Google, and our phone companies collect a lot of information about each of us. This has been the case for a long time, and more often than not it’s to improve the user experience of the services we rely on. If data is shared outside the organization, it’s anonymized to prevent the usage of any one individual from being identified. But it’s understandable while this practice has still sparked a passionate and longstanding debate about privacy and ‘big brother’-style snooping.
What is often forgotten, however,...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - May 22, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Blogger Tags: Healthcare HealthCare IT Population Health Management Mike Serrano NETSCOUT Public Health Subscriber Information Source Type: blogs
40th Annual Health Law Professors Conference
If you teach health law, come to the 40th Annual Health Law Professors Conference, June 8-10, 2017, at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta. Here is the schedule:
Thursday, June 8, 20178:00-12:00 AM Tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Separate registration is required. Participants meet in the lobby of Georgia State Law to take a shuttle to the CDC.)
9:45 – 11:15 AM Tour of Grady Health System (Separate registration is required. Participants meet in the lobby of Georgia State Law and will walk over to Grady as a group.)
2:00 – 5:00 PM Conference Registration – Henso...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - April 27, 2017 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
Zika Virus: Protecting Pregnant Women and Babies digital press kit
The CDC has shared infographics, statistics, factsheets, and additional resources about Zika as part of a digital press kit, Zika Virus: Protecting Pregnant Women and Babies. The resources include rates of virus occurrence, tips on prevention, and information for health providers. (Source: BHIC)
Source: BHIC - April 24, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Annette Parde-Maass Tags: Public Health Websites Zika Source Type: blogs
Why President Trump Should Use Foreign Aid For Health To Make America Great
The Trump administration recently proposed to make major cuts to US foreign assistance, including the $10.3 billion a year that the federal government spends to advance global health through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the United Nations.
As practitioners with more than 60 years of combined experience, we believe that the Trump administration is making a terrible mistake. Investing in global health is essential to the safety, security, and future prosperity of the United States, in addition to being a highl...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 17, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Robert Hecht and Sten Vermund Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Global Health Policy Population Health Public Health epidemics foreign aid humanitarian aid infectious diseases PEPFAR US foreign assistance Source Type: blogs
Scott Gottlieb ’s FDA Commissioner Confirmation Hearing: Remarkably Unremarkable
On Wednesday morning, the United States Senate Committee on Health, Energy, Labor, and Pensions conducted the confirmation hearing for Dr. Scott Gottlieb, President Trump’s nominee to be the next Commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). In a presidential administration whose confirmation hearings have sparked more than a few contentious moments, Dr. Gottlieb’s hearing was remarkable for how unremarkable it was. Senators from both parties asked questions on the full range of the FDA’s jurisdiction, and Dr. Gottlieb’s experience combined with his clear preparation for the hearing resulted in an uneve...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 7, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Rachel Sachs Tags: Drugs and Medical Innovation Featured FDA generic drugs opioid epidemic Source Type: blogs
A Race To Restore Confidence In The World Health Organization
Editor’s Note: This post reflects on a panel that Dr. Jha moderated this January in Washington, DC hosted by The Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center, the Harvard Global Health Institute, and Health Affairs.
The election for the next Director General (DG) of the World Health Organization (WHO) has stirred a quiet but important conversation about the agency’s future role. Yet the two major questions driving this uncertainty—do we really need a WHO and, if yes, what do we need the WHO to do—are often avoided in polite company. The next DG needs to answer bo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 6, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Ashish Jha Tags: Featured Global Health Policy Ebola infectious disease World Health Organization Zika Source Type: blogs
Our planet, ourselves: Climate change and health
Follow me on Twitter @Peter_Grinspoon
At first glance, climate change and personal health may not seem related. One is a global political and environmental concern, while the other deals ultimately with an individual’s well-being. However, climate change is already directly affecting human health in many parts of our world, including many areas of the United States. We are just beginning to understand, and to witness, the health effects of climate change.
The problem with a warmer planet
As human-made carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere increase, we create a “greenhouse effect,” and our world warms. T...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 29, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Peter Grinspoon, M.D. Tags: Health Health care Source Type: blogs
The viruses in your blood
If you have ever received a blood transfusion, along with the red blood cells, leukocytes, plasma and other components, you also were infused with a collection of viruses. A recent study of the blood virome of over 8,000 healthy individuals revealed 19 different DNA viruses in 42% of the subjects.
Viral DNA sequences were identified among the genome sequences of 8,240 individuals that were determined from blood. Of the 1 petabyte (1 million gigabytes) of sequence data that were generated, about 5% did not correspond to human DNA. Within this fraction, sequences of 94 different viruses were identified. Nineteen of the...
Source: virology blog - March 24, 2017 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information blood viruses transfusion viral virome Source Type: blogs
The Unfolding Medicaid Story: Congress, Governors, And The Trump Administration
Anyone who has had the chance to witness (or be part of) any of the epic health reform dramas that continually play out in Washington D.C. will agree: in the end, it always comes down to Medicaid. We have once again arrived at one of those moments.
The typical starting point for this continuing drama is the initial reaction to Medicaid’s sheer size and reach—16 percent of all health care spending in FY 2014, and 74 million people enrolled as of December 2016. These figures are especially astonishing to the newly initiated when one compares them to where Medicaid was only 37 years ago in 1980—fewer than 20 mil...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 21, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Sara Rosenbaum Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP block grants governors per capita caps States Source Type: blogs
The American Health Care Act And Medicaid: Changing A Half-Century Federal-State Partnership
Based on page length alone, it is evident that Medicaid is a focal point of the American Health Care Act, released on March 6. Although its fate is uncertain, the bill provides a clear sense of where the Affordable Care Act repeal and replace strategy is heading. Where Medicaid is concerned, what has been discussed for years has now become real: using ACA repeal/replace as the vehicle for a wholesale restructuring of the very financial foundation of the Medicaid program as it has existed over an unparalleled, half-century federal/state partnership.
As expected, the House bill essentially eliminates the enhanced funding lev...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 10, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Sara Rosenbaum Tags: Featured Medicaid and CHIP ACA repeal and replace Planned Parenthood Source Type: blogs
Online Virus Tracking Tool Nextstrain Wins Inaugural Open Science Prize
Credit: Trevor Bedford and Richard Neher, nextstrain.org.
Over the past decade, scientists and clinicians have eagerly deposited their burgeoning biomedical data into publicly accessible databases. However, a lack of computational tools for sharing and synthesizing the data has prevented this wealth of information from being fully utilized.
In an attempt to unleash the power of open-access data, the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Britain’s Wellcome Trust, launched the Open Science Prize . Last week, after a multi-stage public voting process, the inaugural awa...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 10, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Chris Palmer Tags: Computers in Biology Bioinformatics Ebola Genomics Infectious Disease Spread Infectious Diseases Modeling Viruses Zika Source Type: blogs
