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Monday, May 14, 2012

Health Care Reform Articles-May 15, 2012

5Here is the Telnaes video I meant to send yesterday, instead of the Romney-bashing one.

The best country for mothers

May. 11, 2012 - A new report from Save the Children ranks Norway as the healthiest country for mothers; the U.S. comes in 25th. (Ann Telnaes/The Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/norway-the-best-country-for-moms-us-ranks-25th/2012/05/11/gIQAtqePIU_video.html



Hands-On Medical Education in Rwanda




The success of Rwanda in providing health care to its poor has drawn the attention of the international community and has inspired a new program at Harvard University.
Rwanda was one of the poorest countries in the world in 1994, after a genocide claimed more than 500,000 lives and left the country with little or no access to medical services. In 2005, it began to rebuild its infrastructure. Now, according to the Rwandan Ministry of Health , the country provides health care and insurance to more than 90 percent of its population, inspiring medical leaders from around the globe to visit the African country to study its transformation.
Now, the Harvard School of Public Health is working with the Rwandan Ministry of Health to teach a course called Global Health Delivery in the village of Rwinkwavu twice a year.
“Rwanda is honestly starting to change the face of global health,” said Dr. Paul Farmer, one of the founders of Partners in Health , a nongovernmental organization that works in Rwanda and other poor countries. He is also the chairman of Harvard’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and one of the faculty members for its course in Africa.

In health care, cheaper can mean better


An Irish adage says: “When you come to a wall that is too high to climb, throw your hat over the wall, and then go get your hat.” That’s what Massachusetts started with its 2006 law requiring just about everyone to get coverage and arranging to make that coverage affordable. Now, it’s time to get the hat.
Legislation to contain costs is the necessary sequel. Reducing costs won’t just rescue health care; it will also help rescue our schools, our roads, our museums, our wages, and the competitiveness of our corporations; that’s because every additional nickel we spend on health care comes from somewhere else — somewhere also important.
Can Massachusetts’ health care be universal, excellent, and far less expensive?

Healthcare jobs fuel revival in Pittsburgh

About 1 in 5 private-sector employees works in health services, which has replaced manufacturing as the region's powerhouse. It's a transformation happening across the U.S., but many worry about long-term side effects.

By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
May 13, 2012


MaineCare tops agenda as lawmakers return

Legislators will take up spending cuts to balance an $83 million shortfall in the state DHHS budget.

By GLENN ADAMS/The Associated Press
AUGUSTA — MaineCare cuts, long-term borrowing proposals and property rights are among the items on the agenda as Maine lawmakers return to the State House today to conclude their 2012 session.

Portland mayor: Budget cuts are ‘penny wise, pound foolish’


Posted May 14, 2012, at 6:08 p.m.
PORTLAND, Maine — Cutting funding for programs that promote health and prevent disease to balance the state’s books will only cost Maine more in the long run, Portland Mayor Michael Brennan said Monday.
Brennan spoke out a day before lawmakers are set to reconvene in Augusta to consider a plan to close an $83 million shortfall in the Department of Health and Human Services by slashing spending on Medicaid and other health programs, while providing some tax cuts.
The plan was approved, along party lines, by the Appropriations Committee last week. It now will be up for votes in the House and Senate.
These cuts follow an earlier round of DHHS cuts last month, which dropped Medicaid coverage for 12,000 beneficiaries in the state.
Brennan targeted Republicans’ plan to divert $11 million from the Fund for a Healthy Maine to help close the budget gap. The fund allocates money from the landmark 1998 tobacco settlement for smoking and substance abuse prevention programs and a variety of health initiatives.

Physicians say U.S. needs single-payer national health insurance program

By Roger Brown

The United States must move toward adopting a single-payer national health insurance program – or continue to risk seeing its future threatened by an inadequate system that wastes huge amounts of money and keeps millions of Americans from getting necessary medical care, two longtime physicians and health-care advocates said Wednesday.
“Our current health care system has made medical care too much of a commercial business, instead of a basic right for every American,” said Dr. Garrett Adams, a Louisville, Ky., pediatrician and president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), which represents some 18,000 physicians across the U.S.
Dr. Art Sutherland, a retired Memphis cardiologist and president of PNHP’s 150-member Tennessee chapter, echoed Adams’ statements and said more and more Americans – realizing that the current medical system isn’t adequate – are showing support for a national health-insurance program that would cover all Americans, dramatically expand Medicare and be publicly funded.
‘The public is getting smarter about this, and so are physicians,” Sutherland said. “They know that what we have doesn’t work and that [a national-health insurance program] has got to happen.”
Adams and Sutherland made their comments during an interview at the Bristol office of East Tennessee State University Family Physicians – part of their two-day tour across the Tri-Cities to promote PNHP’s call for the U.S. to adopt a publicly financed, national health-insurance program.








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