Health Affairs

With the Budget Control Act of 2011 now signed into law, health care lobbyists are preparing to fight any changes to federal programs that affect their constituents.  One particular concern for physicians is the scheduled 30 percent cut to Medicare reimbursement mandated by the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula. Any attempt to waive these cuts will need... Read the rest of this entry »

On September 8, Health Affairs will release its September 2011 issue, “Confronting Costs.” The issue explores the third element of the famed Three-Part Aim for health care: namely, the objective of lowering costs. Topics to be discussed include chronic disease costs and opportunities for savings through prevention; who bears the burden of health costs; the... Read the rest of this entry »

The federal government’s Beacon Program provides funding to 17 communities that have already made inroads in the development of secure, private, and accurate systems of electronic health record (EHR) adoption and health information exchange. This is the fifth in a series of Health Affairs Blog posts in which leaders of several Beacon communities discuss their... Read the rest of this entry »

Section 1001 of the Affordable Care Act establishes women’s preventive health benefits as a new mandatory coverage class for all insurance products sold in the individual and group markets, self insured employer-sponsored health plans, and benchmark plans enrolling newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries.  In implementing the Act in accordance with the tight deadlines established under the... Read the rest of this entry »

The burden imposed on our society by type 2 diabetes mellitus has grown dramatically over the last decade.  Greater numbers of people than ever before are being diagnosed with diabetes at younger ages.  These people and their families must face the spectrum of implications brought on by diabetes, including its many associated medical complications. The... Read the rest of this entry »

For those who assume that the next generation of Americans will live longer than their parents, a new “three-dimensional” method of forecasting vital health statistics shows how this may not prove to be the case. Most Americans enjoy better health today than in the past, with significant declines in death rates from the top three... Read the rest of this entry »

Vaccinating children around the world against infectious diseases has saved the lives of millions over the past several decades. Now new opportunities exist to overcome remaining challenges, according to articles in the June 2011 issue of Health Affairs, Strategies For The Global ‘Decade Of Vaccines, published June 9. The new Health Affairs volume explores the... Read the rest of this entry »

Health Affairs plans a thematic issue on the U.S. and global imperative to stem the growing burden of diabetes, which is among the top contributors to the international epidemic of noncommunicable disease. As part of our development process for this issue, which is scheduled to be published in early January 2012, we are issuing a... Read the rest of this entry »

Most children in the United States are getting regularly scheduled immunizations for infant and childhood diseases. But a new survey shows that some parents remain unpersuaded that all vaccines are safe or even necessary. The survey was published yesterday in the June issue of Health Affairs, a thematic volume titled “Strategies For The ‘Decade Of... Read the rest of this entry »

Two new studies published today in the June issue of Health Affairs project huge benefits from a major ramp-up of vaccine development and delivery over the next 10 years in 72 countries. The studies, both from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, find that boosting vaccine coverage could prevent the deaths of 6.4 million children,... Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow, Thursday June 9, at 8:30 AM at the W Hotel in Washington DC, Health Affairs will hold a briefing in conjunction with the release of its June 2011 issue, “Strategies For The ’Decade of Vaccines.’” A complete line-up of speakers and other details are available here. If you want to attend the briefing, you can RSVP... Read the rest of this entry »

Immunizing the world’s children against infectious diseases has dramatically cut childhood death and suffering in recent decades.  In 2010, philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates called for a new “Decade of Vaccines” to vault the progress dramatically forward. The June 2011 issue of Health Affairs, sponsored by the Gates Foundation, examines the strategies that will be... Read the rest of this entry »

Immunizing the world’s children against infectious diseases has dramatically cut childhood death and suffering in recent decades.  In 2010, philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates called for a new “Decade of Vaccines” to vault the progress dramatically forward. The June 2011 issue of Health Affairs, sponsored by the Gates Foundation, examines the strategies that will be... Read the rest of this entry »

In the eyes of some, health reform  threatens to burn down the old house of the American health system before it has built the country a new one.  There are many who will not mourn the passing of the old, but it is fair to say that most health care leaders are extremely anxious to... Read the rest of this entry »

The 8th Annual World Health Care Congress (WHCC) will convene April 4-6, 2011 in Washington D.C. with more than 1,800 health care leaders to address the challenges of health care cost, quality and delivery. Health Affairs is a supporting publication for this event, which presents leading-edge case studies and best practices from all industry sectors,... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other global health leaders recently launched a new effort to eradicate polio. Below, Scott Barrett comments on the potential rewards and the risks of this new initiative, and in another post Judith Kaufmann offers her thoughts on the new initiative as well. The global effort to eradicate polio... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other global health leaders recently launched a new effort to eradicate polio. Below, Judith Kaufmann comments on the potential rewards and the risks of this new initiative, and in another post Scott Barrett offers his thoughts on the new initiative as well. On January 31, Bill Gates introduced... Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t keep up with the latest twists and turns in healthy policy, you probably don’t know what value-based health insurance benefits are. A Health Affairs article takes a focused look at it. Here is my layman’s summary: If you are like most people, you are not a very good consumer of health care.... Read the rest of this entry »

We may never know the motivations behind the horrific acts in Tucson and whether they could have been prevented. Mental illness, however, has been tentatively identified as a “suspect” in the shootings.   If we are to learn anything from this tragedy, we must look at mental health as a public health issue and give it... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: This is the latest in a series of posts by Timothy Jost on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  Earlier posts analyze provisions governing premium review, medical loss ratios, insurance exchanges, coverage for pre-existing conditions, appeals of coverage denials, coverage for preventive services, a patient bill of rights, grandfathered plans, tax-exempt hospitals, the small employer tax... Read the rest of this entry »