Category: Reader Consult: Is the Revamped Contraceptive Policy a Good Compromise?

MEwens
President Obama will announce a revamped contraception-coverage policy today that shifts the responsibility to cover free birth control to insurers rather than employers, the WSJ reports.
The move will let a broader group of religious employers — hospitals, charities and universities, not just churches — opt out of the mandate to cover contraception for […]

Betsy McKay
Contraception Compromise?: The Obama administration is looking for possible compromises on a policy that requires most religious employers to offer health plans that cover the cost of contraception for their workers, the WSJ reports, citing people familiar with the discussions. One possible model: Hawaii, where employees of religious organizations can enroll in […]

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 […]

MEwens
By Louise Radnofsky
Still trying to figure out how health care will play in the Republican primary and the November presidential election? Consider some numbers from the latest opinion poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Some 54% of respondents said they thought the Supreme Court should rule unconstitutional the individual mandate — a requirement […]

WSJ Staff
Roche’s Genomics Bet: Roche’s $6 billion hostile bid for DNA-sequencing company Illumina represents a bet that the technology will filter down from academic and government research centers to doctors’ offices and hospitals, the WSJ reports. Roche believes sales of genetic mapping machines will almost double to $2.1 billion by 2015, but some […]

MEwens
Keeping Birth-Control Rule: The Obama administration refused to scrap a rule that will require most employers to offer health insurance that provides FDA-approved contraceptives with no copayments or deductibles, the WSJ reports. There is an exemption for certain employers if birth control violates their religious beliefs, and those who object but don’t qualify […]

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 […]

WSJ Staff
The latest national health spending figures out Monday show slowed growth in medical expenditures in 2010 — and plenty of debate fodder for both policy wonks and political partisans.
For a start, there’s little consensus among analysts over the causes of the slowdown.
Republicans are seizing on the explanation that it’s the product of […]

MEwens
Up to the States: The onus is on the states to make the tough decisions about what treatments must be covered by individual and small-group plans under the health-care overhaul law, the WSJ reports. The Obama administration said states would be able to align coverage standards with those of popular federal- and state-employee […]

MEwens
Drug-Company Changes: Matthew Emmens, the CEO of Vertex — which this year won approval for a hepatitis C drug — will leave that job Feb. 1 and will be replaced by Jeffrey Leiden, the WSJ reports. Emmens will become executive chairman through May, when he’ll retire but will remain a director of the […]