Health stories in the news

Unapproved hormone used to prevent premature births

Seattle Times health reporter Kyung Song writes in today’s issue of the paper about a program in which Washington state’s largest Medicaid contractor is promoting the use of a synthetic hormone that is thought to prevent premature births.

But the hormone, called 17P, has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for this use and many health providers consider its use experimental.

But its use has been recommended by some doctors’ groups and the drug is covered by some health insurers.

To learn more:

• Read Kyung Song’s article: Medicaid contractor Molina advocates synthetic hormone to reduce costly preterm births.

Health reform and long-term care insurance

Also in today’s Seattle Times, State Rep. Brendan W. Williams (D-Olympia) criticizes the legislature’s decision to cut Medicaid payments to long-term care facilities.

Most other states, he writes, have used Medicaid assistance funds included in the federal stimulus package to maintain or increase nursing-home funding.

And things could get worse if rule changes that will cut Medicare rates now under consideration in Congress get passed into law.

Such changes would hit Washington nursing homes with a 9 percent payment cut, he writes.

To learn more:

• Read Williams’ op-ed piece: Congress and Washington state must figure in impacts on long-term care in reform efforts.

End-of-life discussions and the “collectivist” agenda

Two other recent op-ed pieces in the Seattle Times also addressed health-reform issues.

Peg Rutchik, RN, executive director of Providence Hospice of Seattle, and Dr. Wayne McCormick, the hospice’s medical director, defend the provisions in the U.S. House of Representatives health-reform bill that would provide reimbursement to physicians who hold discussion with their patients about end-of-life care, provisions which critics of health-reform have called an effort to promote euthanasia.

Rutchik and McCormick write:

Let’s make this clear — end-of-life planning is not euthanasia or assisted suicide. It’s a way for people facing serious illness and approaching the end of their lives to discuss their needs and wants with their physicians.

Instead, . . .

The proposed provision would allow coverage for an “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” This provision is intended to offer Medicare beneficiaries an opportunity to engage in an informed and focused conversation with their health-care practitioner about “advance care,” or the care they want at the end of their lives.

And in another op-ed piece, Robert J Herbold, a retired COO of Microsoft and managing director of the Herbold Group, and Scott S. Powell is the founder of AlphaQuest and director of capital markets for Clarus Capital, argue that current health-care reform proposals under consideration in Congress promote a “collectivist” agenda that will ultimately destroy individual initiative, free markets, and personal responsibility.

They write:

It is time to take the first step in restoring the primacy of personal choice and responsibility. It is time to say “no” to Washington elites and “yes” to the people who deserve real reform based on a competitive system with incentives to contain costs while assuring choice, quality and flexibility.

To learn more:

• Read Rutchik and McCormick’s op-ed piece: Americans deserve to have end-of-life discussions with their doctors.
• Read Herbold and Powell’s op-ed piece: Get real: Health-care reform based on collectivism will fail.

To learn more:

Tags: 17p, End-of-Life Care, Health Insurance, Health Policy, Health-care Reform, Long-term Care, Medicaid, Nursing Homes, Obstetrics, Prematurity, Preterm

Category: Health Insurance, Health-care Policy, Healthcare Reform, Medicaid, Newborn and Infant Health, Women's Health