June 28th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Research
Tags: Deloitte Center For Health Solutions Study, Family Medicine, Federal Subsidies, General Medicine, Government-Funded Care, Harry Reid, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare Politics, Healthcare reform, Internal Medicine, Kaiser Commission On Medicaid And THe Uninsured, Long Term Care, Low-Income Patients, medicaid, Poor Patients, Primary Care, Public Health System, Stalled Legislation, State Budgets, U.S. Senators, Underinsured, Uninsured Patients, Unsustainable, Urban Institute
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New reports peg Medicaid’s future as dismal and unsustainable, as states struggle for ways to pay for the rising costs of caring for their poorest residents. The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions study, “Medicaid Long-Term Care: The Ticking Time Bomb,” estimates Medicaid costs will nearly double as a percentage of state budgets by 2030, or perhaps nearly triple.
Meanwhile, the Urban Institute for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured estimates Medicaid expansion will cost $464.7 billion by 2019. The federal government will cover $443.5 billion (95.4 percent) and the states will cover the remaining $21.2 billion. Minnesota won’t expand its Medicaid program until 2014 because of budget fears. Connecticut will. (The Fiscal Times, MedPage Today, Reuters, U.S. House Rep. John B. Larson)
U.S. Senators, meanwhile, are looking to phase out federal subsidies Medicaid as a way of pushing through stalled legislation — the same package that had included the “doc fix.” Speaking of that, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate may soon turn its attention away from that toward other issues. (Wall Street Journal, The Hill, ABC News)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
June 28th, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Research, True Stories
Tags: Doctor-Patient Communication, Dr. Matt Handley, General Medicine, Group Health, Home-Based Healthcare, Patient-Centered Medical Home, PCMH
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Probably not yet. I think everyone would agree that Group Health of Seattle probably has a pretty good “take” on issues dealing with primary care redesign and the patient-centered medical home (PCMH). That’s why I surprised by a recent comment on a Group Health blog from by Matt Handley, M.D., in response to an earlier post here about patient question-asking. Dr. Handley is an Associate Medical Director for Quality and Informatics at Group Health.
Dr. Handley writes:
“While doctors often take pride in how open they are to patient questions, our self assessment doesn’t match up very well with empirical evidence. A recent post on Mind the Gap summarizes a small study that is relatively terrifying to me –- the take home is that doctors spend very little time explaining their recommendations, and that patients rarely ask questions.”
I picked up the phone and talked with Dr. Handley about his comments and work being done on PCMH at Group Health. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
June 27th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Medical Art, News, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: Illegal Organ Trafficking, Lack of Organ Donors, Organ Harvesting, Organ Transplantation, Patients Waiting For a Transplant
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I don’t plan to sell my organs on eBay, but as organ transplantation, lack of donors, and illegal organ trafficking gets more and more serious, this infographic comes just in time. It provides some interesting answers to questions like, “How much does a liver cost in South Korea?” and “How many patients are waiting for transplants?” Click on the image for the original larger version:
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
June 27th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Adaptive Optics, Cellphone, Eye Exam, Eye Health, Eye Testing Aberrometers, Focal Range, iPhone, Manuel Oliveira, MIT, Optical System, Optometry, Ramesh Raskar, Refractive Errors, SIGGRAPH, Vision, Vitor Pamplona
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Researchers at MIT have developed a method of using a basic cellphone coupled with a cheap and simple plastic device clipped onto the screen to estimate refractive errors and focal range of eyes.
Because of its simplicity, and the fact that soon just about everyone will have access to a mobile phone, eye exams may become available to the whole world at little to no cost. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
June 27th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research, True Stories
Tags: Association Vs. Causation, Cancer Risk, Cause-And-Effect, CNN, Coffee, Evidence, Gary Schwitzer, Health News Consumers, HealthNewsReview.org, Inappropriate Use of Terminology, Language, Media Coverage, Media Inaccuracy, Misinterpretation, Misinterpreted Observational Studies, Online User Comments, Science And The Media, WebMD
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People aren’t dumb. Even if — or maybe especially if — news stories don’t point out the limitations of observational studies and the fact that they can’t establish cause-and-effect, many readers seem to get it.
Here are some of the online user comments in response to a CNN.com story that is headlined, “Coffee may cut risk for some cancers“:
* “I love how an article starts with something positive and then slowly becomes a little gloomy. So is it good or not? I’m still where I was with coffee, it’s all in moderation, it ain’t gonna solve your health woes.”
* “The statistics book in a class I’m taking uses coffee as an example of statistics run amuck. It seems coffee has caused all the cancers and cures them at the same time.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
