Health Care Reform Articles - December 26, 2011

Full Circle America: An elder care alternative

Posted: December 25
Updated: Today at 7:37 PM 

Combining surveillance with a support network and lower costs, the company's services appeal to seniors who want to stay at home.

By Leslie Bridgers lbridgers@pressherald.com
Staff Writer

ROCKLAND - Framed needlepoints cover the walls of Patty Gardner's living room, where she and Marian White sit and work on their embroidery every Monday.

http://www.pressherald.com/news/an-elder-care_2011-12-25.html

Health care

Three themes for health care:

BY EDDIE YOON, PORTFOLIO MANAGER, FIDELITY VIEWPOINTS — 12/12/11

Periods of dramatic change can create new opportunities, and this is especially true in the health care sector. Composed of companies that make or deliver health-related products and services, this sector is generally less sensitive to swings in the economy than other, more cyclical sectors. While even health care faces secular headwinds, the potential solutions to these problems offer opportunities for investors.

• Theme 1: Increased health care utilization
• Theme 2: Deflationary business models
• Theme 3: Personalized medicine

https://guidance.fidelity.com/viewpoints/healthcare-sectors-2012?print=true

For GOP, ‘repeal and replace’ has been nothing but a mantra on health-care law

By David A. Fahrenthold, Published: December 24

More than a year after Republicans first pledged to “repeal and replace” President Obama’s new health-care law, the GOP is still struggling to answer a basic question.

Replace it . . . with what?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-gop-repeal-and-replace-has-been-nothing-but-a-mantra-on-health-care-law/2011/12/14/gIQApUB8FP_print.html

The Haves’ Children Are Healthier Than the Have-Nots’

By KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI

Every Monday, Sycamore Valley Elementary in Danville challenges its students to run a “Smile Mile” together after school. Some parents even run with their children. Photos of the student joggers’ grinning faces are posted in the cafeteria. On a recent Monday afternoon, there were 41 smiling faces on the wall.

Students at Sycamore Valley have a lot to be happy about when it comes to their physical fitness. Fifth graders there got the best scores among all of their Bay Area peers on the 2011 statewide Physical Fitness Test.

Eighty-three percent of the fifth graders tested at Sycamore Valley aced the test by receiving healthy scores on all six different measurements — of aerobic capacity, abdominal strength, upper body strength, trunk strength, body composition and flexibility, most of them gauged through physical activity. One part of the Physical Fitness Test measures a child’s body composition, usually through body mass index, which is calculated using weight and height and is used to determine who is overweight.

Statewide, only 31 percent of public school students performed as well, according to the California Department of Education.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/us/affluent-children-are-more-physically-fit-than-poor-ones.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Robert Ader, Who Linked Stress and Illness, Dies at 79

By PAUL VITELLO

Dr. Robert Ader, an experimental psychologist who was among the first scientists to show how mental processes influence the body’s immune system, a finding that changed modern medicine, died on Tuesday in Pittsford, N.Y. He was 79.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/science/robert-ader-who-linked-stress-and-illness-dies-at-79.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Providers accepting moderate increases

By Robert Weisman

Massachusetts insurers, taking a tougher line in bargaining with health care providers under pressure from financially strained customers and government regulators, have held payment increases to the lowest level in years.
Contracts negotiated in 2011 gave hospitals and doctors groups average fee increases of 2 to 3 percent, roughly half those given in 2010 and less than in any year since 2005, according to estimates by executives of the state’s three largest health insurers.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/12/26/health-insurers-curtail-rise-fees/oLGI1RexwZNwigWLIHBruJ/story.html

He speaks his mind on health

Dr. Salah D. Salman

WHO
Dr. Salah D. Salman
WHAT

Salman, a former Lebanese cabinet minister and former surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, recently wrote a critique of the American medical system, ‘‘Scrubbed Out: Reviving the Doctor’s Role in Patient Care.’’
Q. You raise a lot of questions in your book about the quality of the American medical system. Is our system worse than we think it is?
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2011/12/26/speaks-his-mind-health/e6G1OPTRmg2bZA71iPwf8J/story.html

Published on Monday, December 26, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

When Medicare Isn't Medicare

by Wendell Potter

Let's say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?

That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to "save" Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.

If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it's still Medicare, are you doing so honestly?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/26-2?print