On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the health care reform bill, a survey of 321 seniors 65 and older revealed that 61%1 think the bill has weakened Medicare in the year since it became law. At the same time, 57% of those surveyed say they will take advantage of a free physical exam and personal wellness plan benefit included in the bill that went into effect this year.

Moreover, 73% of seniors surveyed think the health care bill will continue to weaken Medicare over the long term. When asked about attempts underway in the U.S. House of Representatives to defund the bill, 43% support defunding the bill entirely and 29% think only certain provisions of the bill should be defunded.

The survey was fielded from March 18-21, 2011 by Extend Health, Inc., which operates the nation’s largest private Medicare exchange. The results highlight seniors’ varying opinions and in some cases, misperceptions about the health care reform bill. As the bill stands now, it does not cut any Medicare benefits, and instead adds some benefits, including the previously mentioned free physical exam and other free preventative care services.

Bryce Williams, CEO of Extend Health said, “Clearly, many seniors are worried about their Medicare benefits and believe that health care reform threatens them. No one can predict the future, but the current bill actually strengthens Medicare benefits, and that’s the message that needs to get out so seniors can make informed decisions about their health care.”

The questions and detailed results from the survey are as follows:

What is your opinion of the overall impact of the health care reform bill on
Medicare in the ONE YEAR since the bill was signed into law?

The bill has weakened Medicare 60.8%

The bill has had no effect on Medicare 13.9%

The bill has strengthened Medicare 10.1%

I have no opinion 15.2%

What is your opinion of the overall long-term FUTURE impact that the health care
reform bill will have on Medicare?

The bill will weaken Medicare 72.4%

The bill will strengthen Medicare 13.3%

The bill will have no effect on Medicare 2.5%

I have no opinion 11.7%

Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a bill that would have
repealed the health care reform law, but the bill was voted down when it was sent to
the U.S. Senate. Now, the House is trying to stop implementation of some provisions
of the law by not funding them. How do you feel about efforts to fund or not fund
certain provisions of the health care reform law?

I support defunding the entire bill 42.8%

I support efforts to defund certain provisions of the law 28.8%

I think there are more health care needs that should be added to the bill and funded 11.3%

I think the bill should remain intact and be funded in its entirety 7.2%

I do not support efforts to defund certain provisions of the law 4.7%

I have no opinion 5.3%

A new Medicare benefit that went into effect this year offers people covered by
Medicare a free full physical exam and a personal wellness plan that focuses on
prevention. What are your plans for taking advantage of this new benefit?

I definitely plan to have a free physical exam and personal wellness plan this year 40.0%

I have not decided yet whether to get a free physical exam and personal wellness plan this year 25.5%

I have already received a free physical exam and personal wellness plan this year 16.5%

I have no interest in this benefit 18.1%

Extend Health has helped more than 300,000 seniors compare and choose the private Medicare plans that best meets their needs and budgets. Extend Health is the only place seniors can compare more than 3,500 plans from 70 carriers side by side and find a plan that best meets their needs. Licensed benefit advisors are available to help seniors evaluate their Medicare coverage and explore new options quickly and easily.

Source:

Extend Health Continue reading →

Brain scans of adolescents with dyslexia can be used to predict the future improvement of their reading skills with an accuracy rate of up to 90 percent, new research indicates. Advanced analyses of the brain activity images are significantly more accurate in driving predictions than standardized reading tests or any other measures of children’s behavior.

The finding raises the possibility that a test one day could be developed to predict which individuals with dyslexia would most likely benefit from specific treatments.

The research was published Dec. 20, 2010, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This approach opens up a new vantage point on the question of how children with dyslexia differ from one another in ways that translate into meaningful differences two to three years down the line,” Bruce McCandliss, Patricia and Rodes Hart Chair of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College and a co-author of the report, said. “Such insights may be crucial for new educational research on how to best meet the individual needs of struggling readers.

“This study takes an important step toward realizing the potential benefits of combining neuroscience and education research by showing how brain scanning measures are sensitive to individual differences that predict educationally relevant outcomes,” he continued.

The research was primarily conducted at Stanford University and led by Fumiko Hoeft, associate director of neuroimaging applications at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In addition to McCandliss, Hoeft’s collaborators included researchers at MIT, the University of Jyv?¤skyl?¤ in Finland and the University of York in the United Kingdom.

“This finding provides insight into how certain individuals with dyslexia may compensate for reading difficulties,” Alan E. Guttmacher, director of the National Institutes of Health’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which provided funding for the study, said.

“Understanding the brain activity associated with compensation may lead to ways to help individuals with this capacity draw upon their strengths,” he continued. “Similarly, learning why other individuals have difficulty compensating may lead to new treatments to help them overcome reading disability.”

The researchers used two types of brain imaging technology to conduct their study. The first, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), depicts oxygen use by brain areas involved in a particular task or activity. The second, diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI), maps white matter tracts that are the brain’s wiring, revealing connections between brain areas.

The 45 children who took part in the study ranged in age from 11 to 14 years old. Each child first took a battery of tests to determine their reading abilities. Based on these tests, the researchers classified 25 children as having dyslexia, which means that they exhibited significant difficulty learning to read despite having typical intelligence, vision and hearing and access to typical reading instruction.

During the fMRI scan, the youths were shown pairs of printed words and asked to identify pairs that rhymed, even though they might be spelled differently. The researchers investigated activity patterns in a brain area on the right side of the head, near the temple, known as the right inferior frontal gyrus, noting that some of the children with dyslexia activated this area much more than others. DTI scans of these same children revealed stronger connections in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus, a network of brain fibers linking the front and rear of brain.

When the researchers once again administered the reading test battery to the youths two and a half years later, they found that the 13 youths showing the stronger activation pattern in the right inferior frontal gyrus were much more likely to have compensated for their reading difficulty than were the remaining 12 youths with dyslexia. When they combined the most common forms of data analysis across the fMRI and DTI scans, they were able to predict the youths’ outcomes years later with 72 percent accuracy.

The researchers then adapted algorithms used in artificial intelligence research to refine the brain activity data to create models that would predict the children’s later progress. Using this relatively new technique, the researchers could use the brain scanning data collected at the beginning of the study to predict with over 90 percent accuracy which children would go on to improve their reading skills two and a half years later.

In contrast, the battery of standardized, paper-and-pencil tests typically used by reading specialists did not aid in predicting which of the children with dyslexia would go on to improve their reading ability years later.

“Our findings add to a body of studies looking at a wide range of conditions that suggest brain imaging can help determine when a treatment is likely to be effective or which patients are most susceptible to risks,” Hoeft said.

Hoeft further explained that the largest improvement was seen in reading comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading. The youths showed less improvement in other reading-related skills such as phonological awareness. Typically developing readers tend to develop phonemic awareness skills before developing fluency and comprehension skills.

Hoeft suggested the finding that youths with dyslexia recruited right brain frontal regions to compensate for their reading difficulties, rather than regions in the left side of their brains, as typical readers do, may have something to do with this.

The study is part of a rapidly developing field of research known as “educational neuroscience” that brings together neuroimaging studies with educational research to understand how individual learners differ in brain structure and activity and how learning can drive changes at the neural level. Such questions are now being effectively examined in young children even before reading instruction begins, McCandliss explained in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Science article published earlier this year.

“This latest study provides a simple answer to a very complex question ‘what can neuroscience contribute to complex issues in education?’” McCandliss said. “Here we have a clear example of how new insights and discoveries are beginning to emerge by pairing rigorous education research with novel neuroimaging approaches.”

The research was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Stanford University Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Child Health Research Program, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

Source: Vanderbilt University Continue reading →

There’s good news for women with epilepsy. Breastfeeding your baby while taking your seizure medication may have no harmful effect on your child’s IQ later on, according to a study published in the November 24, 2010, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“While more research is needed with larger numbers of women and their babies, these results are reassuring to women who want to give their babies all the benefits of breastfeeding but also need to remain on their epilepsy medications to avoid devastating seizures,” said study author Kimford Meador, MD, of Emory University in Atlanta and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

The study followed 194 pregnant women who were taking one epilepsy drug. Of their 199 babies, 42 percent were breastfed. When they were three years old, the children were given IQ tests.

The study found that there was no difference in IQ scores between the children who were breastfed and those who were not. Those who were breastfed scored 99 on the test, while those who were not scored 98, which is not a significant difference.

The women were taking the drugs carbamazepine, lamotrigine, phenytoin, or valproate. Meador noted that more research is needed on the effects of other, newer drugs for epilepsy. The children whose mothers were taking valproate had lower IQ scores, whether or not they were breastfed. American Academy of Neurology guidelines recommend that valproate be avoided during pregnancy due to risks of birth defects and effects on cognitive skills. AAN guidelines also recommend that women avoid taking more than one epilepsy drug at a time during pregnancy since taking more than one drug has been found to increase the risk of birth defects compared to taking only one medication.

Editorial author Autumn Klein, MD, PhD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard Medical School in Boston said that this is one of the first large studies on breastfeeding while taking an epilepsy drug.

“Many women are counseled not to breastfeed due to the lack of information on the effects of these drugs, but breastfeeding has many positive emotional effects for the mother and the baby along with the decreased risks for heart disease, diabetes, and obesity in the child and breast and ovarian cancer in the mother,” Klein said. “This study highlights the pressing need for more data on epilepsy drugs in breast milk and the long-term effects.”

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the UK Epilepsy Research Foundation.

Source: American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Continue reading →

In an effort to tackle major health policy issues in the United States, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation® (RWJF) has announced the selection of this year’s recipients of its Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. Sixteen scholars affiliated with major universities across the country will receive funding to support 10 new research projects. The winning researchers are tackling a wide range of health policy issues such as ways to treat children with Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) more effectively and improve their quality of life; the way we define and assess risk for developing Alzheimer’s Disease; consumer understanding of health claims made about food and beverages; the connections between child and adult health; and the politics surrounding research that compares the effectiveness of medical treatments.

“This program stimulates thinking that is creative and crosses disciplinary boundaries in search of solutions to vexing issues affecting health and health care in the United States,” says David Mechanic, Ph.D., national program director for the Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research.

RWJF created the Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research program to support talented researchers whose crosscutting and bold new ideas promise to contribute meaningfully to improving U.S. health policy. Funded projects produce enduring insights, sophisticated analyses of pressing problems, potential solutions for improving health and health care, and evidence that informs policymakers, the media, and the public. Since 1992, the Foundation has supported 157 projects involving 202 investigators.

Source:
Barrett Whitener

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research Continue reading →

Women who suffered sexual or physical abuse as children are more likely to abuse alcohol than are others, according to a new study of 3,680 women.

The women who had been sexually abused as children were more likely to have four or more drinks in a day, be alcohol dependent and report alcohol-related consequences, such as drinking in a way that leads to a serious threat to their physical health.

“The study shows a strong association between having a history of child abuse and problems with alcohol abuse. The take-home message is across a range of alcohol consumption patterns, child abuse is consistently associated with alcohol abuse. All of my measures found that association,” said lead author E. Anne Lown Dr.P.H., a scientist with the Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville, Calif.

Lown and colleagues examined cross-sectional data from the 2005 U.S. National Alcohol Survey, which questioned women about physical and sexual child abuse using eight alcohol measures.

The study appears early online and in the February 2011 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Researchers accounted for factors like age, marital status, employment status, education, ethnicity and parental alcoholism.

Certain characteristics of child abuse increased the likelihood that women would report both alcohol-related consequences and alcohol dependence. These include reporting (1) sexual abuse compared to physical abuse, (2) having two or more abusers, (3) non-parental and non-family physical abusers and (4) injury related to the abuse.

“A strength of our study is the very large numbers. As a result, we could look at specific characteristics of child abuse in ways that other researchers could not do,” Lown said. “For instance, we were able to show the effects of multiple perpetrators and look at types of perpetrators associated with alcohol dependence.”

Cinnamon Stetler, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., said, “One thing unique about the study that really makes it an important addition to the literature is the way they were able to divide participants into groups of just physical abuse and just sexual abuse. That’s not very often done. Though the two types of abuse do co-occur frequently, it is often difficult to get the effect of one abuse verses different types of abuse.”

Rates of alcohol misuse associated with child abuse might be higher. Stetler said that the national data measures did not incorporate whether children experienced emotional or psychological abuse, like neglect. Surveys measuring abuse often have lower response rates.

“People who did not respond to the survey may have been more troubled,” Lown said. “This may mean that our results are more conservative.”

“We, as a society, have to take responsibility for the healing of children and adults with a history of child abuse,” Lown said, “We need to screen for abuse in all settings – not just screen for but have interventions in place that will address the long term consequences of child abuse. Without screening, the problem will not be recognized.”

Lown EA, et al. Child physical and sexual abuse: a comprehensive look at alcohol consumption patterns, consequences and dependences from the National Alcohol Survey. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 35(2), 2011.

Source:

Health Behavior News Service Continue reading →

Guided Therapy Systems, LLC (GTS), a leading medical technology company, is the first company in the world to develop and commercialize products that employ a unique form of ultrasound technology, Intense Therapeutic Ultrasound (ITU).

Addressing a $4 billion market, the company’s patented products combine ultrasound imaging with ultrasound treatment in a single non-invasive “see and treat” device. The “see” capability allows physicians to see into the body without surgery. The “treat” capability allows the delivery of focused acoustic energy deep into tissue without affecting intervening tissue.

On September 11, 2009, following several years of product development and extensive clinical studies, the Federal Food & Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval for these products to be marketed in the United States, a first for any product in this technology category, and a definite first for its clinical use, aesthetic improvement.

Clinical studies have shown that the non-invasive face lift procedure has an excellent safety profile, is tolerated without the need for an anesthetic and the patient can return to his or her daily routine immediately. GTS’s patented see/treat devices are being commercialized by spin-off company Ulthera, Inc. and promoted to physicians and surgeons throughout the world, including Europe, Asia and the United States. GTS continues to develop and commercialize its ITU technology platform to address large unmet needs in other specialties including women’s health, aesthetic medicine and musculoskeletal applications including sports medicine, oncology and others.

GTS executives include founder Michael H. Slayton, PhD, chairman and chief executive officer; co-founder Brian D. O’Connor, president and chief operating officer; and co-founder Peter G. Barthe, PhD, vice president, research and development.

Source
Guided Therapy Systems, LLC Continue reading →

Americans are confident about their ability to keep the food they eat safe – but a new survey shows they don’t trust their neighbors, and they don’t really have a good feel for how widespread food-borne illness is.

Survey results released today in Washington, D.C., by a Michigan State University center show a country in cuisine conflict. The MSU Food Safety Policy Center seeks to understand U.S. attitudes about food safety – who we think should be responsible for it, who we think is most at risk, and even how severe we think the risk might be.

The survey shows that only 10 percent of Americans say they got food poisoning in the past year – yet statistics say a quarter of Americans suffered food-borne illnesses each year – data that itself is more than 10 years old.

“We get sick, by and large we know we get sick – but we don’t know if it’s food-borne illness,” said Craig Harris, an MSU sociologist and study director of the Food Safety Policy Center. “We can see that Americans tend not to attribute as many of our illnesses to food as we should.”

“People who got sick probably don’t know that the foods they eat are unsafe,” added Andrew Knight, a visiting professor in the center. “When you tell them how much food-borne illness there is out there, they find it unacceptable.”

Harris said there is little data even tracking how much of a toll food-borne illness takes on the nation. The latest study, published by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, indicates that food-borne illness sends some 325,000 people to the hospital each year, and kills 5,000 people, but he notes that estimate comes from data gathered in the early 1990s.

“We don’t know who is getting sick and we don’t know if food-borne illness is evenly distributed across the United States or whether some groups are more able to protect themselves or are more protected against food-borne illnesses than other groups,” he said.

The survey was created by the Food Safety Policy Center, whose mission is to promote the development and implementation of food and water safety policies that will ultimately improve human health by more effectively and efficiently reducing food- and water-borne illnesses.

The information was collected in telephone interviews with 1,014 adults in the United States between Oct. 31, 2005 and Feb. 9. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent. The survey was paid for by the Food Safety Policy Center. Food-borne illness springs from a complex web that encompasses farm and field, processing and distribution channels, as well as restaurants, kitchen tables, and lunch bags left on the front seat of a car longer than any health official can feel comfortable about.

Harris said the survey is unique in that it sought to represent the juggling of values Americans face in food. What have surfaced are dichotomies: Confidence and optimism sometimes outpace statistical reality when it comes to perception of how widespread food-borne illness is. Trust in federal government is high – but half of Americans say they don’t want the government to ban foods that may be unsafe, but also hold high value. Harris points to foods like raw milk fresh cheese or unpasteurized apple cider as examples of national disagreement.

“We are all complex and we all have a combination of expectations,” Harris said. “On one hand, we want the federal government to make the food supply as safe as possible, but sometimes we’re quite happy to accept unsafe food because it’s fresher, because it tastes better or because it’s part of our ethnic identity. We want to obtain the freedom and autonomy to choose bundles of goods, positives and negatives.”

Among the findings:

* Ninety-six percent of Americans feel they trust themselves to ensure foods they eat are safe. But when asked if they trust others to handle their food, the confidence rate drops to 62 percent. Add to that is that despite the rate of self-confidence, only 58 percent say they know a lot or quite a bit about food safety.

“The data shows that people feel very comfortable with their own practices and their own behaviors,” said Michelle Worosz, a research associate in the center. “There’s a high level of belief in themselves.”

* Sixty-three percent of Americans say they are very or fairly concerned about the safety of the food they eat. Fifty-four percent say they think about food safety when grocery shopping and 46 percent say they consider it when eating out at a restaurant.

* Some Americans are willing to put their money where their mouths – and digestive tracks – are. Eighty-four percent said they’d be willing to add $270 a year to their food bill (the equivalent of paying 5 percent more) if food-borne diseases could be reduced by 50 percent.

* Americans identify the federal government most – 38 percent – as the group they expect to keep food safe. Most – 88 percent – say they think the government – most notably the FDA and the USDA – are capable of keeping food safe, but only 49 percent say they feel the government has enough resources to do the job properly.

The survey also raised some warning flags about how race and class affect food safety issues. The survey indicated higher levels of concern about food safety among people with lower education levels, lower income levels and among African Americans.

“It’s quite possible one of the things we don’t know is whether persons in these groups have the same access to safer foods,” Harris said. “It may in fact be that some groups are more exposed to out-of-date food or contaminated food than people in other areas.”

###

Contact: Craig Harris, MSU Food Safety Policy Center: harriscmsu.edu; or Sue Nichols, University Relations nicholsmsu.edu

MSU also is home to the National Food Safety & Toxicology Center, comprised of faculty from seven colleges and 19 departments. Areas of expertise within this center include pre-harvest food safety, epidemiology, toxicology, food- and water-borne disease, microbiology, risk communications, and food law.

The Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station provides support for the Food Safety Policy Center.

Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 15 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.

For MSU news on the Web, go to newsroom.msu.edu/

Contact: Sue Nichols
Michigan State University Continue reading →

The Biophysical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2008 Society awards. The fourteen recipients will receive their awards at the Joint Biophysical Society Annual Meeting and IUPAB International Biophysics Congress Awards Ceremony on Monday February 4, 2008 at the Convention Center in Long Beach, California. The awardees are:

Ben de Kruijff of Utrecht University will receive the Avanti Award in Lipids for his excellent and high-impact contributions to the field of lipids and membrane biology;

Robert Callender of Albert Einstein College of Medicine will receive the Distinguished Service Award for his service and remarkable commitment to the Biophysical Society Journal during his tenure as Editor-in-Chief;

David S. Eisenberg of the University of California, Los Angeles and Donald M. Crothers of Yale Univeristy will share the Emily M. Gray Award for their significant contributions to education through creating rigorous, ground-breaking text enriching generations of biophysicists;

Peter G. Wolynes of the Univeristy of California, San Diego will receive the Founders Award for his exceptional intellectual contributions in advancing biophysical theory and physical sciences.

Sergei Sukharev of the University of Maryland will receive the Michael and Kate Barany Award for Young Investigators for his outstanding and creative contributions to membrane biophysics;

Steven M. Block of Stanford University will receive the U.S. Genomics Award for Outstanding Investigator in the Field of Single Molecule Biology for his contributions, leadership, and creativity in advancing the field of single molecule biology;

Judith Klein-Seetharaman of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine will receive the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award for her remarkable work in computational biology embracing the full spectrum of experimental biophysics. This award is given to a junior woman scientist of promise in the field of biophysics, who has not yet reached a position of high recognition within the structures of academic society; and

H. Ronald Kaback of the University of California, Los Angeles will receive the Anatrace Membrane Protein Award for his outstanding contributions to unraveling the structure and mechanism of action of E. coli lactose permease.

In addition, five Biophysical Society members have been named to the 2007 class of Society Fellows. They are:

Timothy A. Cross of Florida State University for his scientific accomplishments and leadership in the field of solid state NMR methods to the biophysical characterization of membrane proteins, and for service to the scientific community;

Eve E. Marder of Brandeis University for her seminal discoveries in the field of neuroscience and elegantly combining both experiment and theoretical work in an innovative manner to advance the field of neurobiology;

Ivan Rayment of the University of Wisconsin for his work in protein crystallography demonstrating the essential function it plays in the modern biophysics;

Stephen G. Sligar of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for advancing our knowledge of biological functions through the concerted application of numerous biophysical methods; and

Attila Szabo of NIDDK, NIH for developing novel theoretical analyses for a wide variety of experiments and bringing leadership to the service of biological physics.

###

The Biophysical Society, founded in 1956, is a professional, scientific society established to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. The Society promotes growth in this expanding field through its annual meeting, monthly journal, and committee and outreach activities. Its nearly 8000 members are located throughout the U.S. and the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry. For more information on the society or the 2007 annual meeting, visit biophysics/.

Source: Ellen R. Weiss

Biophysical Society Continue reading →

Neither Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) nor Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) has “signaled any intention to scale back his plans” on health care despite the recent economic downturn, but “with the federal government sinking ever deeper into debt and a $700 billion financial rescue package being implemented, many question just how much either presidential candidate can hope to deliver,” the AP/Houston Chronicle reports. According to the AP/Chronicle, the presidential candidates “insist their health care plans would not add to the national debt, but independent analyses suggest otherwise.”

Uwe Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton University, said, “Do we have the money to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper? The answer is no,” adding, “We have to worry about Goldman Sachs. That’s where we are.” Robert Laszewski, a health care policy consultant, said that broad health care reform legislation has “zero” chance of passage amid the economic downturn and that the presidential candidates “owe us more of an explanation than they gave us at the debates” about how they plan to implement their proposals.

Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said regardless of economic conditions, the next president will have to phase in any changes he seeks, rather than implement sweeping reforms. Altman said, “Coming up with the money to pay for health reform and expanding coverage was always a huge mountain to climb,” adding, “It just got much higher.”

However, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said that the committee next year will consider broad health care reform legislation despite the economic downturn. He said, “While some suggest that the current economic situation might thwart efforts to overhaul America’s health care system, I believe the state of the U.S. economy makes the need for health care reform even more urgent.”

Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) agreed, although he said that he will focus on proposals to reduce health care costs. He said, “I know that taking care of the uninsured is really an issue by itself, but you make that job easier to the extent you get health care cost under control” (Freking, AP/Houston Chronicle, 10/14).

Final Debate Unlikely To Include Details
Obama and McCain on Wednesday will meet at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., for the final presidential debate, but “few experts expect much new insight” on their health care and other proposals, McClatchy/Seattle Times reports. According to McClatchy/Times, not “only does the format discourage talk about details, but also on the stump, on their Web sites and in their ads, the campaigns have shown little desire to get too precise” about their proposals.

For example, neither Obama nor McCain has announced a comprehensive proposal to address the long-term financial problems of entitlement programs. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said that the Obama and McCain campaigns “are about making the country feel comfortable,” adding that “Social Security and Medicare are the poster children for failing to address a problem.”

In addition, the problem “extends to how to best manage the nation’s health care system,” as “experts find the specifics sketchy at best,” McClatchy/Times reports. During the last debate, when asked whether health care “should be treated as a commodity,” Obama “gave a lengthy answer” without much explanation and “then criticized McCain’s ideas,” and McCain promoted his proposal for refundable tax credits, according to McClatchy/Times. John Geer, editor of the Journal of Politics, said, “Both candidates went into their standard stump speeches,” adding, “The woman wanted a sense of where they stood on health care. Bill Clinton would have been hugging her and making her understand his program, but both Obama and McCain missed their chance” (Lightman, McClatchy/Seattle Times, 10/14).

Biden Criticizes McCain Proposal
Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) on Monday during a campaign event in Rochester, N.H., “blasted” McCain on health care, the Manchester Union Leader reports. According to Biden, the refundable tax credits that McCain has proposed would not cover the cost of health insurance for U.S. residents who lose their employer-sponsored coverage and must purchase coverage on the individual market.

He said, “Where I come from, we call that the ultimate bridge to nowhere” (Namuo, Manchester Union Leader, 10/13).

Examination of Health Care Proposals
Several newspapers recently examined the Obama and McCain health care proposals. Summaries appear below.

BusinessWeek: BusinessWeek on Monday examined the different philosophies of the presidential candidates on proposals to expand health insurance to more U.S. residents (Arnst, BusinessWeek, 10/13).

CQ HealthBeat: CQ HealthBeat on Tuesday examined whether the McCain health care proposal would increase taxes and how McCain plans to fund his plan (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 10/14).

Newsweek: Newsweek on Tuesday examined the accuracy of statements that the presidential candidates have made about the health care proposals of their opponent (Robertson, Newsweek, 10/14).
Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

Government officials and advocates are urging seniors who spend significant time away from home each year to sign up for a national Medicare drug plan and not a regional plan, which might not cover their medications when they are away from home, the AP/Washington Times reports. According to the AP/Times, many states with large numbers of so-called “snowbirds” and “sunbirds” — retirees who live in other states for large parts of the year — do not have contingency plans for seniors who discover their Medicare drug plan only works in their home states. Seniors who find themselves in such a situation would have to wait to change plans in the fall open-enrollment period, federal officials and advocates say. To avoid such confusion, officials are using advertisements, press attention and counselors at senior centers or telephone hot lines to alert seniors to the issue. Scott Parkin of the National Council on Aging said, “This is a new program, and people are trying to learn about it, and concerns about travel are questions people need to ask. It could be a problem, but we probably won’t see this until more people start heading north” (AP/Washington Times, 5/2).

Midterm Elections
In related news, The Hill on Tuesday examined public opinion on the drug benefit and how Democrats hope to use their criticism of the program for “political gains in the midterm elections.” According to The Hill, Democrats have long described the drug benefit as a “disaster” and said seniors are “too confused to choose the right plan.” Several Democrats have introduced legislation that would change the program and are pushing for an extension of the enrollment deadline. However, their “strategy could prove risky,” with the latest public opinion polls showing that seniors who have joined a drug plan are “satisfied with their coverage,” The Hill reports. Still, Democrats remain confident that public opinion will shift again when seniors begin to reach the so-called “doughnut hole” — the gap in drug coverage between $2,250 and $5,100 in drug costs during which beneficiaries are responsible for 100% of costs — likely right before the election. “Let’s do the [public opinion] poll” when the doughnut hole becomes a problem, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) said. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said, “It’s not about telling people whether it’s working or not. They will know.” She added, “I don’t know of any Democrat who thinks this is working the way it should. You betcha this is going to be an issue” in the midterm election (Young, The Hill, 5/2).

“Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →