Latest California Healthline Stories
Medicare ‘Giveback’ Leads to 8.4% Spending Increase
Medicare spending rose 8.4% in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2001, according to Congressional Budget Office figures, the AP/Omaha World-Herald reports.
Tobacco Companies Still Target Youths with Magazine Ads
Three years after the tobacco industry agreed to curtail advertising in magazines with a “significant” readership under age 18, three companies continue to market their products in magazines like Rolling Stone, People, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and TV Guide, the New York Times reports.
Debate on the Uninsured Centers on Tax Credits vs. Expansion of Programs
The Boston Globe today examines the current debate in Congress over the best way to reduce the number of uninsured in America, with Democrats generally in favor of expanding public health programs and Republicans favoring tax credits.
Stark Files Brief Opposing Bush’s Medicare Discount Drug Card Plan
As expected, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) has filed an amicus brief in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., supporting drug stores and community pharmacists in a suit against President Bush’s plan to provide Medicare beneficiaries with drug discount cards, the Oakland Tribune reports.
Wisconsin Biotechnology Company Hopes to ‘Lasso’ the Power of Bioinformatics
Insilico Med, a new biotechnology company formed in part by the Medical College of Wisconsin, hopes to “lasso” the human genome map and “translate” the information into “personalized” medical treatments — the science of bioinformatics — which may “profoundly change health care and tap a market potentially worth billions of dollars,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Los Angeles Times Supports Right-to-Die Ruling, Saying Court Must ‘Protect the Unprotected’
The California Supreme Court’s ruling last week barring families from removing feeding tubes from “severely brain-damaged but conscious [relatives] without clear, convincing evidence” of the patient’s wishes “seems a reasonable, cautious half-step as our inattentive society drifts through the slow, arduous process of consensus-building while medical advances race ahead,” according to a Los Angeles Times editorial.
Bayer Corp. will Reduce Medicaid Rx Drug Prices
Bayer Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of Bayer AG, announced yesterday that the company would reduce prices on some prescription drugs purchased by the government after reaching a “trailblazing” Medicaid fraud settlement with state and federal regulators, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Number of AIDS Cases, Deaths Stable from 1998 to 2000
According to data released yesterday by the CDC at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, AIDS cases and AIDS-related deaths have remained stable over the last two years, signalling that an “era of dramatic declines” in the mid-1990s might be over, the Washington Post reports.
Medicaid GAO Report Finds Services Lacking for Children
Families of children enrolled in Medicaid are not “sufficiently informed” of their entitlement benefits and “many” children are not receiving mandated care, a new GAO report finds.
The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the “largest provider of specialized HIV/AIDS medical care in the United States,” on Friday filed a lawsuit against PacifiCare of California, charging that the insurer has violated state law by not providing “standing referrals” to people with HIV enrolled in its HMO plan.