One in seven Americans under age 65 went without prescribed medicines in 2007 as drug costs spiraled upward in the United States, a nonprofit research group said on Thursday.

The Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington, D.C., studied the issue, and Laurie E. Felland, a senior health researcher at the center and lead author of the study, said a number of factors contributed to the trend, including rising drug prices, the tendency of physicians to prescribe drugs more frequently, the introduction of expensive new specialty medications, and skimpier drug coverage that shifts a greater share of costs onto patients.

The germs were passed – and are transmitted – on health care workers’ hands and equipment. Staph aureus – and other microbes – in hospitals developed a capacity to repel many antibiotics.

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Health Care Opinion Leaders Express Overwhelming Support for Expanding Coverage While Simultaneously Addressing Quality, Efficiency and Costs

New York, NY, Leaders in health care and health care policy feel strongly that President-elect Barack Obama should pursue an ambitious health care reform agenda that expands coverage while also improving quality and efficiency, and controlling costs. In fact, two-thirds (66%) of those surveyed in the latest Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey said that the new administration should pursue these goals simultaneously.

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“Off-label promotion of pharmaceutical drugs is a serious crime because it undermines the FDA’s role in protecting the American public by determining that a drug is safe and effective for a particular use before it is marketed,” said Gregory G. Katsas, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. “This settlement demonstrates the Department’s ongoing diligence in prosecuting cases involving violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and recovering taxpayer dollars used to pay for drugs sold as a result of off-label marketing campaigns.”

link to Department of Justice report of the settlement:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/January/09-civ-038.html

Newly unemployed Americans will have to spend about 30 percent of their jobless benefits on average to pay for health insurance through their former employer, according to a new report.

And if they want coverage for their families, the report by Families USA says it will take more than 80 percent of their unemployment check.

Unemployment hit a 16-year high last month as another 524,000 jobs were cut. For all of 2008, government says the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs.

When workers lose their jobs, they are usually eligible to maintain their health insurance coverage through their old employer if they pay the premiums, plus a 2 percent administrative fee. The benefit is referred to as COBRA insurance, because of the law that established it.

As part of his economic stimulus package, President-elect Barack Obama is proposing to spend about $80 billion dollars to extend unemployment benefits and to subsidize health care for people who have lost their jobs.

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The public ranks action on health care highly as part of efforts to stem the impact of the economic recession and also views reforming health care as one of the top priorities for President-elect Obama and Congress, according to a new national survey conducted by researchers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Americans rank helping the newly unemployed afford health insurance coverage second (picked by 33% as a top priority) behind helping businesses keep or create jobs (45%). Providing states with more federal help to pay for health care of lower income residents ranks third (picked by 31%). These proposed health provisions of the stimulus package ranked ahead of repairing the country’s infrastructure, cutting taxes for the middle class, helping people pay their mortgages (each picked by 27%), and helping large businesses hurt by the recession (13%).

The survey results are available online at http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/posr011509pkg.cfm

Newly unemployed Americans will have to spend about 30 percent of their jobless benefits on average to pay for health insurance through their former employer, according to a new report.

And if they want coverage for their families, the report by Families USA says it will take more than 80 percent of their unemployment check.

Unemployment hit a 16-year high last month as another 524,000 jobs were cut. For all of 2008, government says the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs.

When workers lose their jobs, they are usually eligible to maintain their health insurance coverage through their old employer if they pay the premiums, plus a 2 percent administrative fee. The benefit is referred to as COBRA insurance, because of the law that established it.

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