FRIDAY, Nov. 13 (HealthDay News) — Seniors enrolled in private, standalone Medicare prescription drugs plans (PDP) could encounter significant changes this open enrollment period, which begins Sunday.
Monthly premiums will rise 11 percent to $38.94, on average, according to an analysis published by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s up 50 percent from 2006, the first year that Medicare Part D drug benefits were offered. Read More
THURSDAY, Oct. 29 (HealthDay News) — An estimated 17,000 children in the United States might have died unnecessarily over nearly two decades because they didn’t have health insurance, according to a report from researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore.
They found that kids who lacked health insurance were 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than were kids who had insurance. After adjusting for such differences as race and gender, uninsured kids were still 37.8 percent more likely to die than kids with insurance coverage. Read More
THURSDAY, Oct. 22 (HealthDay News) — A squeeze on finances is now playing a key role in many couples’ decisions about fertility treatments, including whether they will try to conceive using assisted reproductive technology or whether they will discard leftover embryos put into storage, new studies show.
Among the new findings, presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Atlanta: Read More
FRIDAY, Oct. 16 (HealthDay News) — Black children and kids without private insurance are less likely than white children and those who do have private insurance to be given tests when seen for chest pain at hospital emergency departments, a U.S. study has found.
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center researchers analyzed data on 818 chest pain-related emergency department visits made by children and teens included in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey between 2002 and 2006. Read More
THURSDAY, Oct. 8 (HealthDay News) — Want cheaper health care? Consider moving across the state line.
A new report finds that health-care costs, quality and the ability of people to access care vary widely, depending on where you live. And compared with two years ago, the gap is widening in some places.
The findings come from a state-by-state scorecard on health care issued by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. Read More
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7 (HealthDay News) — Despite regulations requiring orthopedic doctors to disclose financial interests in products and consulting fees from device makers, about 30 percent fail to do so, a new study shows.
Disclosure of payments to doctors by device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies has been hotly debated for many years. Recently, most medical journals and professional societies have instituted policies mandating disclosure of possible conflicts of interest, but the problem persists, experts say. Read More
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 23 (HealthDay News) — Women are postponing pregnancy and having fewer children because of the recession, but just when they need birth control most, many can’t pay for it, a new survey finds.
“The recession has impacted much more than people’s wallets,” said Laura Lindberg, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute, which issued its report Wednesday.
“Women, especially those that are facing financial difficulties, want to avoid an unintended pregnancy more than ever, and many of them are having difficulties affording their contraception to do this,” she said. Read More
THURSDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) — If you doubt that lack of health insurance can have deadly consequences, consider these new findings: Americans without health insurance are 40 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance.
As many as 44,789 Americans of working age die each year because they lack health insurance, more than the number who die annually from kidney disease. Read More
THURSDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) — Children with health insurance coverage are more likely to miss necessary health-care services if their parents are uninsured, new research shows.
These children are at greater risk of having difficulty seeing a doctor, getting dental care and accessing prescription medications than kids in families where children and parents are insured. They’re also less likely to receive counseling on healthy eating, routine exercise, use of a safety or booster seat, and use of seatbelts and bike helmets, the study found. Read More
FRIDAY, Aug. 7 (HealthDay News) — Even if Congress extends health coverage to the nation’s 46 million uninsured Americans, there’s no guarantee that everyone will have access to care — unless payment reforms and new models of care are adopted, some experts say.
Significantly expanding coverage without reforming health-care delivery is “a recipe for failure,” said Alwyn Cassil, a spokeswoman for the Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington, D.C. “You won’t be able to sustain the expanded coverage because it will just bankrupt us.” Read More
