News 2011
Ryan Plan For Medicare Is 'Pure Budget Solution, Not A Health Policy Solution' —The KHN Interview
Alec Vachon has his doubts about the workability of a GOP proposal – called premium support – to transform Medicare into a system of limited government help. Vachon, a health care consultant who worked for top Republicans on Capitol Hill for more than a decade, says the idea, put forth last week by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, would be a problem if federal contributions were insufficient to help seniors buy an insurance policy.
Approaching 30 Years of HIV/AIDS in the United States
In less than two months, we will mark the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of what we now know as AIDS. In June 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a rare form of pneumonia diagnosed in five, previously healthy, gay men from Los Angeles. The report raised concerns that these five men had been exposed to something that caused their profound immune suppression. Now we know that their disease resulted from infection with HIV.
Read more: Approaching 30 Years of HIV/AIDS in the United States
10 Reasons To Feel Good About Health Reform Implementation
Supporters of the Affordable Care Act tend to get gloomy about the threats haunting every step along its path to implementation, seeing the negatives more clearly than they perceive the positives. As an antidote, I offer 10 reasons to be optimistic about health reform’s progress and prospects.
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Health Insurance Exchanges Already Making Waves
This story was produced in collaboration with the Washington Post.
It seems like a simple idea: create new marketplaces, called "exchanges," where consumers can comparison shop for health insurance, sort of like shopping online for a hotel room or airline ticket. But, like almost everything else connected with the health overhaul law, state-based insurance "exchanges" are embroiled in politics. Some Republican governors are threatening to refuse to set up exchanges unless they get more flexibility over Medicaid, the state-federal health program for the poor. Others say they don't want to implement any part of the federal health care law.
Ask The Doctor: What Should You Do If You Have Been Exposed to HIV?
Every month, HIV specialist Theresa Mack, M.D., M.P.H.--an associate medical director at St. Luke's Roosevelt Morningside Clinic, a comprehensive HIV-care center in Harlem, N.Y.--will answer your most pressing HIV/AIDS questions.
If you are concerned that you may have been exposed to HIV, see your doctor immediately about postexposure prophylaxis (PEP), a treatment that--taken correctly-- may prevent about 80 percent of people who have recently been exposed to the virus from becoming infected with it.
Read more: Ask The Doctor: What Should You Do If You Have Been Exposed to HIV?