Administration launches new campaign to fight health risks from youth smoking.

PROJECT COPE: COALITION ON PATIENT EMPOWERMENT
Controlling Costs Through Rationing End of Life Care
In the struggle to control health care costs, reported expenditures end of life expenditures often are a prime target for cost containment and cost cutting. While health care expenditures tend to significantly increase with age, American […]
US Health Care Spending Growth Slows As Private Insurance Coverage Continues To Shrink Amid 2010’s Slow Economy
U.S. health care spending grew 3.9 percent in 2010 to $2.6 trillion or $8,402 per person according to the Annual Report of National Health Expenditures (NHE). The Report notes that since 2007, the economic recession and legislative changes led to a noticeable change in the shares of health care spending financed by businesses, households, and governments. Declining enrollment in private insurance resulted in continuing growth in government financing of this care. The federal government financed 29 percent of the nation’s health care spending in 2010, an increase of six percentage points from its share in 2007 of 23 percent, and reached $742.7 billion. Part of that increase came from enhanced Federal matching funds for State Medicaid programs under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act which expired in 2011. Review the details of the Report here.
Transportation Barriers Challenge Health Care
Resolving transportation barriers to accessing care for patients remains challenging and not just for helicopter transport. Poor and other transportation impaired patients often can’t access or are delayed in accessing care because of diffculties in getting […]
Maintaining Jobs Key To Keeping Americans Covered
A new study documents that job loss from a stale economy is key driver in increase in the uninsured.
Senator Hatch Attacks Proposed ACA Premium Tax Credit Regulations
U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, says the premium subsidy provisions of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care act (Affordable Care Act) does not authorize the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to allow individuals purchasing coverage through a federal health insurance exchange to receive the tax credits and subsidies authorized under new Internal Revenue Code § 36B to offset the cost of being mandated to buy health insurance created under Affordable Care Act Section 1311.
CMS Celebrates 1st Anniversary of Strategic Framework on Multiple Chronic Conditions
December 14, 2011 marked the one-year anniversary of the release of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Strategic Framework on Multiple Chronic Conditions (Plan), a plan aimed at improving the overall health status of individuals with multiple chronic conditions. CMS is marking the anniversary by touting what it sees as early successes.
Texas Health Care Organizations Among 26 Organizations Receiving Awards To Promote Health Care Quality, Safety & Affordability
Affordable Care Act funding seeks to help health providers identify and spread local ideas to improve care, reduce preventable healthcare acquired conditions The Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Foundation, the Texas Center for Quality & Patient […]
Education Key To Helping Low-Income Families Make Better Health Choices
Healthy Cal is reporting that the experience of the The Network for a Healthy California, a partnering program by federal, state, and local agencies, shows that educational programs can help low income families make better health choices.
Poor Planning & Execution Often Tank Wellness Programs
Eliminating one unhealthy food by replacing it with another doesn’t improve health outcomes.