News In Healthcare

Well­Point recently announced that it is start­ing a plan where its own employ­ees will get their bonuses if they prac­ticed pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures such as can­cer screen­ings, immu­niza­tions, and dia­betes man­age­ment tools.  The Amer­i­can Med­ical News explains that Well­Point has devel­oped a mea­sure­ment and track­ing tool to assess an employee’s health sta­tus.  The goal of the pro­gram is to ensure that WellPoint’s employ­ees stay their healthiest. 

A group that sup­ports fund­ing for in-home care, ADAPT, was gath­ered out­side the U.S. Capi­tol yes­ter­day to show sup­port for S. 799 and H.R. 1621 — two bills which would give peo­ple a choice of ser­vices which would allow them to be cared for in their home rather than in a nurs­ing home.  Accord­ing to the ADAPT orga­nizer, the group was chant­ing “Com­mu­nity Choice Act now.”  While this seems peace­ful enough, the U.S. Capi­tol police appar­ently didn’t think so.  They arrested 74 of the pro­tes­tors, all in wheel­chairs, and charged them with unlaw­ful assembly.

It could hap­pen.  A recept report in the Amer­i­can Med­ical News explained that more state med­ical boards may be made up of non­physi­cian mem­bers.  Law­mak­ers in Florida, Geor­gia, New Jer­sey and New Hamp­shire filed bills this year that would add more lay peo­ple to the state med­ical boards and give patients a greater voice in over­see­ing physi­cians.  Right now, all but three states (Alabama, Louisiana, and Mis­sis­sippi) have pub­lic mem­bers on their boards. 

The AARP has launched a cam­paign, Divided We Fail, aimed at get­ting voices raised from the mil­lions of Amer­i­cans who agree that access to health­care and life­time finan­cial secu­rity are the most press­ing domes­tic issues fac­ing the nation.  The AARP is focus­ing its ini­tial efforts in the states with early pres­i­den­tial con­tests.  The Las Vegas Review Jour­nal reported on the recent kick-off of the cam­paign in Nevada.  In a speech before mem­bers, law­mak­ers and oth­ers at the state Capi­tol, AARP Pres­i­dent Erik Olsen said that health care costs, which con­tinue to increase for employ­ers and employ­ees, have affected U.S. com­pet­i­tive­ness abroad. Olsen said that AARP will ask pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates to address health care on a bipar­ti­san basis and will “demand action, answers and account­abil­ity” from the candidates.

Can it be?  Sen­a­tor Edward M. Kennedy and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Din­gell intro­duced leg­is­la­tion on April 25 that is aimed at extend­ing Medicare to all Amer­i­cans, from birth to the end of life.  Under the pro­posed plan, any­one with a social secu­rity num­ber is eli­gi­ble to par­tic­i­pate in the plan unless they choose one of the pri­vate options.  The plan will be financed by a com­bi­na­tion of pay­roll taxes and gen­eral rev­enues that will sub­sti­tute for pri­vate pay­ments.  This will be one to watch!

Well we are one step closer to the answer of NO.  Yes­ter­day, H.R. 493 was sent to the Sen­ate after being passed by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives with a 420–3 vote.  The bill, called The Genetic Infor­ma­tion Nondis­crim­i­na­tion Act, would bar employ­ers and insur­ers from deny­ing a job or health cov­er­age to some­one whom DNA tests show to be genet­i­cally pre­dis­posed to a dis­ease.  Accord­ing to Rep. Judy Big­gert (R-IL), the bill spon­sor, this leg­is­la­tion will lower health insur­ance costs, advance med­ical research, and help peo­ple live longer.  We will have to see if the Sen­ate agrees.

It just may really mat­ter to you.  A national sur­vey was recently con­ducted to study the rela­tion­ships between doc­tors and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and medical-device sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives.  The study found that four out of every five doc­tors sur­veyed let the sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives buy them food and drinks despite recent efforts to tighten ethics rules.  The sur­vey was con­ducted by researchers from Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal, Yale Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne in Aus­tralia.   Pre­vi­ous stud­ies have sug­gested that the cozy rela­tion­ships can affect doc­tors’ pre­scrib­ing patterns.

Cigna recently announced that it has teamed up with Intuit Inc. to offer an online health tool, Quicken Health, to help mem­bers man­age their health care finances.  The Hous­ton Busi­ness Jour­nal explains that the prod­uct is expected to be avail­able to Cigna mem­bers in 2008.   This ser­vice will be very help­ful espe­cially to those who have high deductible health plans with or with­out a health sav­ings account.

Researchers from Ice­land, Eng­land and the U.S. are in a race to find genes linked to a range of dis­eases.  The lat­est win occurred recently when the researchers announced that they had found 7 new genes con­nected to the most com­mon form of dia­betes.  The New York Times arti­cle explains that the find­ing of the new genes does not imme­di­ately lead to new ther­a­pies for dia­betes, but they may point to a new bio­log­i­cal basis for the dis­ease which may in turn lead to more effec­tive treatments.

This week Pres­i­dent Bush signed the National Breast and Cer­vi­cal Can­cer Early Detec­tion Pro­gram Reau­tho­riza­tion Act.   The pro­gram has helped mil­lions of low-income and unin­sured women get screened for can­cer.  The expec­ta­tion for 2007 is that over 700,000 more screen­ings will be con­ducted.   The Pres­i­dent stated that the 2008 bud­get includes a bil­lion dol­lars for research and pre­ven­tion activities.