The latest Health Wonk Review features posts on healthcare quality, the Affordable Care Act, Paul Ryan, and other healthcare issues.
Unlike Mitt Romney, who has often declined to provide specifics about policies he’d pursue as president, Paul Ryan has been very clear about what he thinks the government should do.
In order to meet the healthcare needs of populations at the local, national, and global levels, we’re going to need to think carefully about which providers can do which kinds of tasks. Pieces in Washington Post and New York Times blogs this week highlight projects that reconsider what kinds of providers patients need to see to get care for particular conditions.
A new study finds that in states that pay lower Medicaid fees, fewer physicians are accepting new Medicaid patients.
Here’s an important public health fact: women with dense breast tissue are at least four times more likely to develop breast cancer. I wish I’d known about that risk factor before learning last month that I have Stage IIIB breast cancer.
To the long list of hard-to-pronounce bacteria and viruses that threaten people’s health can now be added one more threat: sequestration. Except sequestration isn’t a disease — well, unless you’d call Congress’ chronic inability to deal with the national debt in a fair and balanced way a disease.
Reform of the medical malpractice system is frequently mentioned as a way to control U.S. health care costs. A study of health care spending following a cap on damage awards in Texas shows no effect on spending levels or trends.
Legislative attacks on women’s health care are so commonplace these days that they make proposals that don’t include a state-mandated vaginal probe seem moderate. In fact, so many legislators are introducing proposals under the guise of protecting women’s health, that it was pretty refreshing to read how the Affordable Care Act will actually protect women’s health. Like, for real.
Researchers have linked the increase in antibiotic-resistant urinary tract infections to the use of antibiotics in livestock. The counterargument that the resistance could have originated in humans in the first place misses the point.
Injury Control & Violence
Houston, we have a workers’ rights problem: Profile of a worker justice center in Texas’ biggest city
Last month, more than 70 ironworkers walked off an ExxonMobil construction site near Houston, Texas. The workers, known as rodbusters in the industry, weren’t members of a union or backed by powerful organizers; they decided amongst themselves to unite in protest of unsafe working conditions in a state that has the highest construction worker fatality rate in the country.