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Website Offers Maps of Environmentally-Linked Cancer Deaths
Want to know whether there’s a link in your state between environmental hazards and diseases like cancer? A new online mapping system released February 26 offers the public, for the first time, easy access to cancer death rates that are known or suspected to have environmental causes. The interactive maps were created for Health-Track, a […]
State Budget Ills Hinder New Cancer Treatment Plan
Faced with an irony in current law that entitles low-income women to be screened but not treated for breast and cervical cancer, Congress agreed last year to let states expand Medicaid to cover these women. But fiscal constraints threaten to keep many states from moving ahead on the issue. Cases like Lisa’s inspired Congress to […]
Urban America Lags in Birth-Related Statistics, Studies Say
America’s large cities showed improvements on some birth-related measures during the prosperous 1990s, according to two new reports released today. With a specific focus on factors like the percentage of mothers who smoked during pregnancy and whether women received late or no prenatal care, the reports were compiled by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Child Trends […]
What’s Behind the Medicaid Cost Explosion?
As budget talks get going in state capitols across the country, cash-strapped officials are pinpointing Medicaid spending as one of the biggest causes of budget problems cropping up in state after state. Skyrocketing prescription drug prices, increased costs for home and community-based healthcare and coverage of more disabled people are the main factors in the […]
Facilities, Job Conditions Blamed For Medical Errors
Two new studies say understaffed health care facilities and poor working conditions for health care professionals are to blame for “medical errors” that annually kill more people in the United States than traffic fatalities, breast cancer and AIDS. The issue of medical errors made headline news in November 1999 when the Institute of Medicine, a […]
States Unhappy With Final SCHIP Registration
When Congress established the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997, lawmakers hoped it would cover millions of children across the country. To reach that goal, federal officials kicked in $24 billion over the first five years, and gave states flexibility to design what works best. If a state wished to expand its Medicaid […]
State Tobacco Payment Dip Exaggerated, Experts Say
When reports surfaced last week that tobacco settlement payments for 16 states had been cut by nearly $200 million collectively, it appeared to be big news. But payments have been going up and down since the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between 46 states and the tobacco industry was reached in November 1998, so some experts […]
State Medicaid Budgets Start To Squeeze
During the last five years, policymakers expanded Medicaid with a flourish. Armed with hearty surpluses and federal funds to boot, many states launched the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), pharmacy assistance programs for the elderly and community-based health services for the elderly and disabled. But budget bliss is fading fast. Numerous states, from Oregon […]
RX Costs To Top State Agendas In 2001, Experts Say
CHARLOTTE — Access to prescription drugs will be the number one issue before state legislatures in 2001, according to participants at the fourth annual National Health Policy Conference. The conference, which took place in Charlotte, N.C. last weekend, brought together nearly 400 lawmakers, lobbyists, legislative staffers and health policy officials from more than 40 states, […]