Prostate Cancer Screening Shows No Benefit
By TARA PARKER-POPEUpdated findings from one of the largest studies of prostate cancer screening show that the commonly used P.S.A. blood test did not save lives, although questions remain about whether younger men or those at very high risk for the disease might benefit.
Last fall, the United States Preventive Services Task Force concluded that healthy men should no longer be routinely screened for prostate cancer using the prostate-specific antigen, or P.S.A., blood test. That decision was based on findings from five well-controlled clinical trials, including a major American study called the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) cancer screening trial, which studied P.S.A. testing in nearly 77,000 men ages 55 to 74.
In 2009, the PLCO trial reported that although annual P.S.A. screening did detect more cancers, it didn’t save more lives when compared with a group of men who were given routine medical care and tested for prostate cancer only when a problem was suspected. But at the time, the investigators had only 7 to 10 years of data. Because prostate cancer can take several years to develop, the investigators continued to collect data after reporting the initial findings.
Young, Obese and in Surgery
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Though Shani Gofman had been teased for being fat since the fourth grade, she had learned to deal with it.
She was a B student and in the drama club at school. She had good friends and a boyfriend she had met through Facebook. She even showed off her curves in spandex leggings and snug shirts.
When her pediatrician, Dr. Senya Vayner, first mentioned weight-loss surgery, Ms. Gofman was 17, still living with her parents in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, her bedroom decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars because she was afraid of the dark.
There was no question, at 5-foot-1 and more than 250 pounds, she was overweight. But she resisted, saying she could diet.
“I’ll lose weight,” Ms. Gofman assured her doctor.
Dr. Vayner said, prophetically, “It’s not your fault, but you’re not going to be able to do it.”
Massachusetts Health Plan Extended to Immigrants
By JESS BIDGOOD
BOSTON — Massachusetts cannot bar legal immigrants from a state health care program, according to a ruling issued Thursday by the state’s highest court, a decision that edges the state closer to its goal of providing near-universal health care coverage to its residents.
The ruling said that a 2009 state budget that dropped about 29,000 legal immigrants who had lived in the United States for less than five years from Commonwealth Care, a subsidized health insurance program central to this state’s 2006 health care overhaul, violated the State Constitution.
“This appropriation discriminated on the basis of alienage and national origin,” wrote Justice Robert J. Cordy of the Supreme Judicial Court, ruling that the action “violates their rights to equal protection under the Massachusetts Constitution.”
A Conservative Call For Universal Access To Health Care
Synopsis: Conservatives in every other industrialized country support universal access to needed medical services. An emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility strongly supports this position, and only in the United States do conservatives believe this is not the case.
Donald Light has been a Fellow of the Center since its founding and focuses on issues of distributive justice. He is a and co-author of Benchmarks of Fairness for Health Care Reform (Oxford University Press, 1996.
http://www.healthpaconline.net/rekindling/Articles/Light.htm
5 steps to shrink the state deficit without sacrificing Maine’s poorest and sickest
Posted Jan. 05, 2012, at 1:45 p.m.
There is no problem in Maine too big to fit into a wood chipper. Got a state budget deficit to fix? No problem — put state Medicaid health insurance coverage for 60,000 people into the chipper, shred it and let those human chips fall where they may.
There is a fairer, better way, to reduce Maine’s projected state budget deficit without the poorest, sickest people in Maine carrying the entire burden. First, postpone for three years the proposed tax cuts scheduled for 2012 for Maine’s wealthiest residents and cover the state budget deficit with the preserved revenue that will result. Then use the three-year hiatus to restructure management of Maine Medicaid into a financially viable and socially responsible program.
Republicans say they won’t support some of LePage’s cuts to MaineCare
Posted Jan. 03, 2012, at 12:52 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — One of the most controversial cuts in Gov. Paul LePage’s proposal to overhaul MaineCare hit a roadblock Tuesday after Republican lawmakers refused to back the plan.
Rep. Patrick Flood, House chairman of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, said his colleagues oppose the governor’s proposal to save $60 million by eliminating funding for private nonmedical institutions, facilities that serve the elderly, the mentally and physically disabled and patients of substance abuse treatment programs.
The PNMI cut is among the largest LePage is proposing to close an estimated $220 million shortfall in the Department of Health and Human Services budget. Flood said the GOP caucus has agreed it won’t support the PNMI cut and will work with the administration to find another solution.
“We can’t support the proposal as provided,” he said.
New study disputes LePage administration on MaineCare’s childless adults
Posted Jan. 09, 2012, at 4:06 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — The childless adults Gov. Paul LePage has proposed dropping from MaineCare are far from young and healthy, despite rhetoric to the contrary, according to a report released Monday by an advocacy group for the poor.
More than 40 percent of childless adults covered through MaineCare are older than 45 and many have serious medical conditions, states the report prepared by Maine Equal Justice Partners. Known as “noncategoricals” because they don’t fall under categories of mandatory coverage, the childless adult group consists of beneficiaries ages 21 to 64 who don’t qualify as disabled under federal guidelines and who have no dependents in the home.
“We think it’s critical that [lawmakers] have an accurate picture of who’s being served,” Sarah Gagne-Holmes, executive director of the left-leaning organization, said at a State House press conference Monday. “Despite the rhetoric that noncategoricals are young and able-bodied, the evidence is very different.”
Project Puts Records in the Patients’ Hands
By RONI CARYN RABIN
In an old “Seinfeld” episode, Elaine goes to see a dermatologist about a rash, and is left sitting on the table in the exam room, alone with her medical chart. She opens the folder and almost immediately makes a sour face.
“ ‘Difficult’?” she says, reading aloud.
Let’s face it: We’ve all tried to imagine what the doctor’s been scribbling during our visits, what is to be found in that intimate record of frailties and phobias that we never see, even though it is all about us.
“The medical record is information that really belongs to the patient, but it’s treated like a classified document,” said Susan B. Frampton, president of Planetree, a nonprofit organization based in Derby, Conn., that promotes patient-centered approaches to health care. “It’s symbolic of the power differential in health care.”
U.S. healthcare spending rises 3.9% in 2010
The increase represents the second-lowest rate on record as consumers avoided going to the doctor, taking expensive prescription drugs and undergoing costly elective procedures.
By Laurie McGinley, Los Angeles Times
7:00 PM PST, January 9, 2012
Reporting from Washington
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-fi-health-spending-20120110,0,3598889,print.story
Many seek switch to public health insurance
Shocked by premium increases of as much as 50 percent, many Germans with private health insurance are seeking to switch to a national health plan, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday.
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