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.
Child Labor
Congress and White House decided to turn their back, but child labor on U.S. farms hasn’t disappeared
The NBC News affiliate in California’s Bay Area released last week a multi-part investigative series entitled “Children in the field: American kids pick your food.” Congress and the White House embrace the fiction of family farms, but children working on farms tell a different story.
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.
UCLA settles with state prosecutors over the death of lab technician Sheri Sangji; investigative reporters in the Bay Area find young children working in the fields; and Australian RAAF firefighters ask the government for compensation for diseases that may be linked to toxic exposures during training.
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.
Massachusetts’ Temporary Workers’ Right to Know Act, just passed by the state’s legislature, aims to end the all-too-common exploitation of temporary workers.
After years of diligent and effective advocacy by former Marines and family members, the House voted on July 31, 2012 in favor of the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act (H.R. 1627). The bill’s first section is named after Janey Ensminger, who died of leukemia at age nine after exposure to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune.
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.
Injury Control & Violence
Coal miner killed in West Virginia while memorial to Upper Big Branch unveiled
Coal miner Johnny Mack Bryant II, 35, was killed on Friday, July 27 in the “red zone” when he was struck and pinned by a continuous mining machine. Let’s see whether this work-related fatality gives the Labor Department a greater sense of urgency to finalize safety regulations to require proximity detection devices on certain types of mining equipment.