Category: A.M. Vitals: Medicare in the Budget-Cutting Crosshairs

MEwens
Medicare a Likely Target: The deal reached to increase the debt ceiling will mean a bipartisan group of legislators will be seeking an additional $1.5 trillion in cuts later this fall, and health-care spending, including on Medicare, is likely to be in the crosshairs, the WSJ reports. Some form of means-testing and raising […]

Katherine Hobson
Family members of military service personnel who take their own lives while deployed will get condolence letters from the president, according to a statement from President Obama, reversing a longstanding but unwritten White House policy.
Many health professionals have long called for a change to the White House’s stance on condolence letters, which […]

MEwens
The Supreme Court decided today that it’s unconstitutional for the state of California to bar minors from buying violent video games (here’s the WSJ story). The 2005 law, which never took effect, violates children and adolescents’ right to freedom of expression, the court ruled by a 7-2 margin.
But do video games actually provoke […]

MEwens
It would seem logical that giving people access to primary health-care services would help cut down on visits to the emergency room.
But a new study suggests that when it comes to mental-health services for kids, that may not be the case. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center looked at patient records for kids […]

Katherine Hobson
Not Going Away: Republicans continued to support Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to overhaul Medicare despite its apparent role in an election defeat this week, the WSJ reports. Ryan’s plan, which would convert Medicare to subsidies with which seniors could purchase private insurance, was a flashpoint in a special congressional election in New […]

MEwens
We admit it — when we read about the latest bedbug infestation, we always get a little itchy.
But for a small group of people, the persistent feeling of invasion goes farther. These folks believe that they’re being infested by wood chips, filaments and living things such as insects, worms and bacteria — even […]

Katherine Hobson
Consumers should be getting mental health benefits on par with those for medical and surgical care, thanks to the 2008 federal mental health parity law.
But whether they are actually getting equal coverage remains a question. Some employers have dropped mental-health coverage altogether to avoid having to beef up their offerings. And many […]

MEwens
Extending Life: When combined with chemo, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s experimental melanoma drug ipilimumab helped extend the life of patients with metastatic melanoma who’d received no previous treatments, Dow Jones Newswires reports. The FDA is scheduled to announce this week whether it has approved the drug — which would be sold under the brand name […]

MEwens
If you ever needed someone to make the case for why it’s important to smile, think of today’s talk by Ron Gutman at TED University. (That’s a short series of presentations by TED conference participants.)
Gutman, a member of the TED conference team and CEO of health-information company HealthTap, pointed out a study from […]

MEwens
Avastin Appeal: The FDA has granted Roche a late June hearing at which the company will try to convince the agency not to remove the breast-cancer indication for the drug Avastin, the WSJ reports. In December the FDA recommended Avastin no longer be approved for breast cancer, saying the drug hasn’t been shown […]