11/12/11 – Thanks again to Kaiser Health News for a synopsis of stories on the D.C. Court of Appeals decision to uphold the individual mandate (requiring most Americans to buy health insurance) in the federal health care reform law. More coverage after the jump.
11/3/11 – Last week, New York Health Works coordinated an event in Chinatown (Manhattan), where Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and City Council Member Margaret Chin met with senior citizens at the Project Open Door Senior Center to help educate them about the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA), a program that helps some 6.5 million people across the country get the prescription medicines they need.
11/2/11 – A full meeting of the Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) was held yesterday. The MRT accepted the final recommendations from four work groups: Program Streamlining and State/Local Responsibilities, Behavioral Health, Managed Long-Term Care Implementation and Waiver Design, and Health Disparities.
10/29/11 – Several news outlets are reporting this morning that, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare premiums will rise at a less than expected rate for next year.
10/28/11 – We at New York Health Works thought it was time to introduce readers to our blog’s main contributor – Jaime Venditti. Jaime is the State Coordinator for New York Health Works.
The New York Times recently ran an article about a woman who is living successfully with schizoaffective disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. ‘Successfully’ does not do her life justice. In fact, she has a high-level job as the chief executive of a large nonprofit mental health treatment organization in California. After struggling for decades as an outcast and with multiple wrong diagnoses, Keris Myrick was able to turn her life around.
There are lots of changes up in the air for health care reform. While our country get things sorted out, in the meantime it’s important for patients to have plenty of options available if they need help with prescription medications.
Here’s a bit of great news for pharmaceutical employees and patients throughout New York — the Long Island Business Journal profiled a new investment of $39M in Suffolk County by Invagen Pharmaceuticals (story can be found here).
The October issue of Health Affairs contains an article on health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities. The article also discusses tried-and-true and newer interventions to address the problem. The article reiterates what we already know: racial and ethnic minorities receive worse health care and have poorer health outcomes than non-minorities. The same holds for disabled and low-income persons.
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal ran a piece in their Informed Patient column entitled Many Pills, Many Not Taken. The column discusses medication compliance challenges and the value of technology and intervention by health care providers.