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Health News Blog Archives
Health News Blog posts insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domain of health facet of life. Health News Blog Sample Health News 1 About 45 Million Americans Have No Health Insurance: July 20, 2007 LOS ANGELES -- An estimated 45 million Americans don't have health-insurance, with most of them in low- to moderate-income families without access to workplace insurance plans, a U.S. think-tank said on Monday. Providing government subsidies to slash the cost of health-insurance for people without coverage would do little to reduce the number of uninsured Americans, the Rand Corporation said in a study, to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Health Services Research. The study found that providing government subsidies would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by just 3 percent. Researchers found that price is only one of several factors that people look at when making the decision of whether or not to purchase insurance. "A lot of people who don't have insurance are young and healthy and would rather spend their money on something else," said M. Susan Marquis, senior RAND economist and one of the study's authors. "One implication of our findings is that if you really do want to get to universal health-insurance coverage, voluntary solutions that rely on financial incentives aren't going to get you there," Marquis said. "Government is probably going to have to mandate it," he added. Health News Blog Sample Health News 2 Medicare health insurance plans run by America's Health Choice in Florida terminated: Fri July 20, 2007 Federal officials Friday said they terminated Medicare health-insurance plans run by America's Health Choice in Florida because of delays and denials of medical care and other issues, the first termination ever made for substandard coverage. The Vero Beach company has about 12,000 members in seven Florida counties, including several thousand in Broward and Palm Beach counties, said Abby Block, director of Medicare's center for beneficiary choice. All members were switched automatically into another health plan, Secure Horizons. AHC's deficiencies "could endanger the health and safety" of its members, Block said. "This is the first time we have terminated a plan based on patient care issues." Health News Blog Sample Health News 3 Senate panel dismisses veto threat on children's health insurance: Jul 19 2007 Washington (AP) A Senate committee today overwhelmingly approved a five-year, 35 (b) billion dollar expansion of children's health insurance, to be financed through higher tobacco taxes. A majority of Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee joined the Democrats to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The program subsidizes insurance such as Montana's CHIP for children with incomes too high for Medicaid but not high enough to afford private insurance. The vote was 17-to-4. Health News Blog Sample Health News 4 Bush Administration Opposes Cigarette Tax Increase To Fund Children's Health Insurance: Jul 19, 2007 HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Tuesday in a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote that a proposal to increase the federal cigarette tax to fund an SCHIP health insurance expansion "would increase taxes on low-income taxpayers," the AP/Houston Chronicle reports (Freking, AP/Houston Chronicle, 7/17). Committee members on Friday finalized a bipartisan agreement on SCHIP reauthorization that would increase five-year funding for the program from $25 billion to $60 billion. SCHIP expires on Sept. 30. The plan -- negotiated by Baucus, Grassley, and committee members Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) -- would increase the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents to $1 per pack to fund an expansion of SCHIP. The group of senators said that the 6.6 million children currently enrolled in SCHIP would continue to receive benefits under the plan, and an additional 3.3 million uninsured children could be enrolled in the program. Health News Blog Sample Health News 5 Bureaucracy hampers health insurance for poor: 18-07-2007 BAC NINH — A tangle of red tape is hampering a plan to extend health insurance to poor families in the northern province of Bac Ninh, officials and residents said last week. The scheme, which has seen premiums slashed by 70 per cent for households just above the poverty line, has had trouble attracting families. "In 2006, I sold 400 insurance cards. This year, the number is not much more because of the procedures," said Nguyen Van Du, from the Social Insurance Agency in Noi Due Commune, Tien Du District. The insurance plan was designed to help some 70,000 people who live just above the poverty line. Most well-off workers bought insurance through their companies and the desperately poor received coverage from the State. But the working poor – over 9 per cent of Bac Ninh’s population – found themselves out in the cold until the rates were dropped. But to get insurance, families have to photocopy their commune’s household registration book, which is held by police. The volume, which is relatively thick, is expensive to copy. Health News Blog Sample Health News 6 Rural children's health insurance in jeopardy: July 18, 2007 By William O'Hare and Cynthia M. Duncan THROUGHOUT social history, trends have started in cities and spread to rural areas. Today, however, we may be seeing a case where the reverse is true. The shift from employer-sponsored health insurance to public-sector health insurance is being led by rural families. Among rural children in low-income families, the share covered by public-sector health insurance increased from 38 percent in 1998 to 54 percent in 2005, while children covered through parents' employers fell by 10 percentage points over the same period. Quietly, our bucolic Main Street has become a place where too many families struggle to make ends meet -- often without a safety net -- in a rapidly changing economy. Rural areas are hit hard by the loss of stable middle-class employment as foreign competition and lower wages overseas vie for these industries. Health News Blog Sample Health News 7 White House objects to taxing cigarettes for children's health insurance: July 18, 2007 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is objecting to how a $35 billion increase in children's health insurance would be paid -- with a 61-cent tax hike on each pack of cigarettes. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt says the proposed bill would ironically increase taxes on low-income taxpayers as a way to fund health coverage for low-income individuals. But Montana Senator Max Baucus says he'll stand with America's children instead of standing with big tobacco companies. Health News Blog Comment: The health of Gaia defines and determines the health of its individuals that we are! Our health is at peril and so is Gaia's! So let's not only be bothered about our own personal health individually without caring for the health of Gaia. And that is what holistic health care is that we need here on earth! Or else we will only end up in chaos necessitating all kinds of health insurance taking care of our welfare in a world where both have fallen ill - the patient as well as the whole nursing staff; just like where both are at risk - the insured as well as the insurance companies fighting a fierce war of cut-throat competition among themselves. Who will insure whom? Let us treat both together - the individual and the system. I invite you to subscribe to my E-zine titled Life Coach, free of charge. This E-zine publishes insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. A not-to-be-missed opportunity! Subscribe to it here: I also invite you to subscribe to my Life Blog - no need to provide your e-mail address here. This RSS feed keeps you informed about new developments taking place on this site. It also harbors 25 journal bloglets posting insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. In order to subscribe to the blog, right-click on the orange RSS button (see buttons up to the left) and then paste the URL into your RSS reader. Or click on add to My Yahoo! button or My MSN or Add To Google button if you keep a personalized home page there. 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