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Avalere Estimates Medicare Part D 'Donut Hole' Will Be Obsolete In 2023
Today"s 65 year old Medicare Part D beneficiary will be 79 when the coverage gap, or "donut hole," is eliminated, says a new analysis of proposed legislation from the House of Representatives released today by Avalere Health. The firm also concludes that although fewer people will fall into the gap from now until 2023, by 2020 some of the sickest Medicare beneficiaries will spend upwards of $16,000 on drugs before reaching catastrophic coverage where the government covers 95% of their drug costs.
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Stanford Studies Show That Leukemia Cells Evade Immune System By Mimicking Normal Cells
Human leukemia stem cells escape detection by co-opting a protective molecular badge used by normal blood stem cells to migrate safely within the body, according to a pair of studies by researchers at Stanford University Medical School.
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Blogs Comment On Senate Resolution On Antiabortion Violence, Role Of Midwives In Health Reform, Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries.~ ""Anonymous" Republican Senator Obstructs Resolution To Condemn Clinic Violence," Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check: On Thursday, an unnamed Republican senator "used his power to put a "hold"" on a resolution (S.R. 187) "condemning violence against women"s health providers, thereby blocking any vote on the resolution," Jacobson writes. She adds, "So much for agreeing on at least a basic premise in the debate about choice, reproductive rights or even reproductive health." Such holds, which senators can submit anonymously and without explanation, allow Republicans to "get away with sorrowful expressions to the media on violence" without having "to be put to the test of actually voting to denounce the violence against" abortion providers like George Tiller, Jacobson writes. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who introduced the resolution, "intended [it] to be non-controversial," but the "condemnation of violence is apparently too much for some Republicans to bear," Jacobson continues. She adds that the House unanimously passed a resolution (H.R. 505) last week condemning violence in places of worship. The three senators who introduced the Senate resolution "decided to move forward with their resolution" without the House"s language because they "feel condemning violence against women"s health care providers and agreeing not to use violence as a means of resolving differences are not objectionable viewpoints," Jacobson writes. She concludes, "Apparently, there is no common ground in the Senate on not using violence where women"s health is concerned" (Jacobson, RH Reality Check, 6/19).~ "Supporting MAMAs," Amie Newman, RH Reality Check: Under President Obama, who is calling for "an exploration of common ground in the abortion debate and is spearheading the fight for health care reform, we have an opportunity to re-examine the gamut of women"s reproductive and sexual health care in order to improve access to all care," Newman writes. She continues that the Midwives and Mothers in Action campaign, a collaboration of advocacy and consumer groups, is working "to ensure that health care reform remembers midwifery." The group is lobbying for federal recognition of certified professional midwives as a means to increase women"s access to affordable, quality obstetrical care and working to ensure that "Medicaid coverage for certified professional midwives is included in any health care reform," Newman writes. According to Newman, in 25 states "it is illegal to choose the care provider or setting for your birth because certified professional midwives are outlawed as birth facilitators." She continues, "As we work towards immense health care reform, the question for all reproductive health advocates should be: How much longer will we tolerate a system in which women"s and babies" health and lives are compromised, costs to the consumer are rising, access to childbirth care remains inequitable and certified professional midwives must fight for their livelihood?" Newman concludes, "Access to abortion care, contraception and childbirth care should be seen as concentric circles -- they are all connected and all part of the continuum of [women"s] reproductive and sexual health care with which reproductive [health] and rights advocates should be concerned" (Newman, RH Reality Check, 6/22).~ "Roe Protects Pregnant Women, Too," Rachel Roth, RH Reality Check: "Roe v. Wade stands for women"s reproductive self-determination: for the right to have an abortion and the right to have a baby," Roth writes. She adds, "Both dimensions of Roe"s promise are critical to women"s lives, yet most people are far more familiar with one than the other." Roth continues that although most people know that Roe "recognized women"s constitutional right to an abortion," those rights "are not absolute." According to Roth, "Roe did not establish a contest between women"s rights and "feta
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Single-payer Advocates Challenge Democrats While Private Insurers Get Nervous

Democrats working feverishly on health care reform "face increasingly noisy protests from those on the left who complain that a national program like those in Europe has been excluded from the debate," The Washington Post reports. Leaders have made it clear, however, that single-payer with its proposal of making the federal government responsible for paying for all health care, is too "politically and practically impossible." "That has not dissuaded single-payer activists, who have spent months hounding Democratic lawmakers and organizing demonstrations, including one that resulted in 13 arrests at a Senate hearing last month." Meanwhile, "Many Republicans see the movement as evidence that Democrats are setting the country on the path to "government-run health care," as they describe it. Conservatives for Patients" Rights, an advocacy group bankrolled by ousted Columbia/HCA chief Rick Scott, unveiled a $1.2 million ad campaign Thursday that portrays Democratic plans as a "bulldozer" aimed at eliminating private insurance companies" (Eggen, 6/6). The New York Times reports President Obama is also trying to soothe the fears of Republicans and insurance companies, largely that a public plan similar to state employee plans would be the first step to a single-payer system, and that because of that, insurers "would not be able to compete with a Medicare-like option and might gradually be priced out of existence." "The administration"s leading voices on health policy say the coexistence of public and private options within state employee benefit programs demonstrates that it can be done. ò€¦ In most cases, the state"s self-insured, or public, option is a preferred provider organization that competes against private health maintenance organizations. A 2008 survey by Mercer, the health benefits consulting firm, found that 61 percent of the members of state employee health plans were enrolled in P.P.O."s, but that private H.M.O."s managed to maintain a third of the market. A notable exception is the largest state plan, the California Public Employees Retirement System, where more than two-thirds of members choose a private insurance option. "It has not destroyed the market," Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said at her Senate confirmation hearing in April. "It has not tilted the playing field. But that"s all about the way the rules are set"" (Sack, 6/6). This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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