USA Today: Opposing View: Ban Food Marketing To Kids The food, media and advertising industries' well-funded assault on the federal government's proposed voluntary guidelines for food marketing to children has paid off. Last Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission agreed to weaken the proposal. The beleaguered agency now says industry is making strides, but there's little doubt that its change-of-heart is the result of a massive lobbying effort aimed at Congress (Josh Golin, 10/16).
The Kansas City Star: Kline's Abortion Records Tactics Deserve RebukePreventing Phill Kline from practicing law in Kansas would be the appropriate penalty for repeated violations of legal rules during his shrill and unfair attack on the state's abortion laws. The Kansas Supreme Court should uphold the indefinite suspension of Kline's license, as recommended by a Kansas disciplinary panel. Surprising no one, the former state attorney general and Johnson County district attorney continues to play the martyr, insisting he's being persecuted for his investigations of "politically powerful people." What nonsense. In reality, Kline's harassment of women seeking legal abortions in Kansas -; and medical personnel who provided those abortions -; was completely out of bounds (10/16).
Modern Healthcare: Point-Of-Care Eligibility Tests Help Steer Patients To Right Insurance ProgramsWith the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures citing rising numbers of the uninsured, all eyes are again looking at what can be done to help this population. Meanwhile, studies have shown nearly one-third of the estimated 50 million uninsured Americans qualify for free or low-cost government-sponsored health insurance programs but aren't signed up. As a result, millions of eligible Americans are using hospital emergency rooms for their primary care, resulting in hospitals experiencing millions of dollars in losses (Phil Lebherz, 10/17).Modern Healthcare: Don't Delay On ACO PushAs the CMS prepares to issue the second round of the regulations for its accountable care organization initiative, known as the Medicare Shared Savings Program, healthcare organizations and political pundits are waiting to see if the many questions raised by the structure and risk described in the first round of draft regulations have been addressed. Without sufficient participation in these Medicare programs, it is not clear if government can drive a movement toward "accountable care" fast enough to meet the needs of our challenged healthcare system (Dr. Gene Lindsey, 10/14).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.