Category: Medicare

MEwens
Social Media and Funding Brouhaha: Social media helped galvanize supporters of Planned Parenthood last week after Susan G. Komen for the Cure said it would cut off funding for the women’s health nonprofit — and then reversed its stance, the WSJ reports. According to social-media monitor NetBase Solutions, Komen-related chatter rose 80% from […]

MEwens
By Louise Radnofsky
The Obama administration is touting good news for seniors from the health-care overhaul law, pointing to $2.1 billion in discounts on prescription drugs for 3.6 million older consumers in 2011.
Part of the law was intended to fill the gap in prescription-drug coverage, the so-called doughnut hole, when Medicare beneficiaries have to […]

Laura Landro
Gut Brain: The health of the gut is tied to more than digestion, with links to processes and conditions including bone formation, learning and memory, Parkinson’s disease and, in lab rats, depression and anxiety, the WSJ reports. Researchers call the enteric nervous system the “gut brain” and note that about 95% of […]

MEwens
Orange Juice Worries: Coca-Cola said it found an unapproved fungicide in some of it and its competitors’ orange juice imported from Brazil, though it wouldn’t identify the brands, the WSJ reports. Coke makes Simply Orange and Minute Maid.  The FDA is testing OJ from supermarket shelves for the fungicide, but the EPA said […]

MEwens
The future of the health-care overhaul law hinges on a decision by the Supreme Court in 2012; the court will hear a case challenging the law’s constitutionality over three days starting March 26, with a decision expected by the end of June. Meantime, though, more provisions of the law are due to […]

MEwens
Formula Comes Up Clean: Mead Johnson Nutrition said Sunday that fresh tests on its Enfamil Premium Newborn formula, a batch of which was pulled from the shelves of retailers including Wal-Mart, Walgreen and Kroger, have turned up no traces of a bacteria implicated in the death of a 10-day-old infant, the WSJ reports. […]

MEwens
Focus on Formula: Wal-Mart and Supervalu have removed certain containers of Mead Johnson Nutrition’s Enfamil infant formula from their store shelves following the death of a Missouri infant from a rare bacterial infection, the WSJ reports. The FDA is testing the formula for the presence of the Cronobacter sakazakii bacteria that killed the […]

MEwens
A doc fix is looking like an increasingly unlikely holiday present for the nation’s physicians — and the patients they treat.
Last year at this time a one-year patch for scheduled cuts to Medicare reimbursement was all squared away with a bow on top.
But it’s been a different story in 2011: as the Associated […]

MEwens
Three Days in March: The Supreme Court said it will hear five and a half hours of arguments concerning the health-care overhaul law over three days, starting Monday, March 26, the WSJ reports. There will be two hours of argument covering the individual mandate — which requires most Americans to purchase insurance or […]

MEwens
New Medicare Plan: Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden plan to today propose a plan for changing Medicare that would permit private health-insurance plans to compete for enrollees with the traditional Medicare plan, the WSJ reports. The plan, which would take effect in 2022 and wouldn’t apply to current Medicare […]