Illustrating Health Reform: How Health Insurance Coverage Will Work
A new interactive feature from the Kaiser Family Foundation illustrates how individuals and businesses in a variety of situations could be affected by health reform. Users can click on a map of the United States showing cartoon individuals, families, and businesses to pull up a pop-up window, and learn how that particular individual, family, or employer will be affected by the new provisions going into effect in 2014 as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Long Term Care and the Health Reform Law
These two videos prepared by the Alliance for Health Reform provide answers to a lot of the most common questions about long-term care and how the new health reform law promotes long-term care.

HOW DOES THE HEALTH REFORM LAW PROMOTE LONG-TERM CARE? (4:26)

WHO NEEDS LONG-TERM CARE, AND WHO PAYS FOR IT? (2:39)

A section by section analysis from the House Rules Committee can be also downloaded.

Families USA has been tracking the entire budget debate since May. If you’re interested in learning more about previously proposed plans and how it would have affected Medicare & Medicaid, take a look.

2-PART SERIES ON END-OF-LIFE ISSUES:

Part 1 – “Ethnic Elders Split on Washington State Assisted-Suicide Law,” New America Media/Northwest Vietnamese News, News Feature, Julie Pham, Ph.D., Posted: Oct 01, 2010.
Link: http://bit.ly/aJW33I
Vietnamese, Latino and Somali seniors know little about Washington state’s 2008 law permitting doctor-aided suicide for terminally ill patients.

Part 2 –  “Ethnic Seniors Avoid End-of-Life Talk, but Want More Options,” New America Media/Northwest Vietnamese News, News Feature, Julie Pham, Posted: Oct 04, 2010.
Link: http://bit.ly/bZ9SJY
Ethnic seniors in Seattle fear that medicine will prolong life beyond its natural limits. Many don’t want to talk about it, but others want to know their option..

Each county is ranked within the state on how healthy people are and how long they live. They also are ranked on key factors that affect health such as: smoking, obesity, binge drinking, access to primary care providers, rates of high school graduation, rates of violent crime, air pollution levels, liquor store density, unemployment rates and number of children living in poverty.

Other studies have ranked states on health factors, but this is the first time researchers have examined the multiple factors that affect health in each county in all 50 states.

Poorly ranked counties often had multiple challenges to overcome, including:

• Two- and three-fold higher rates of premature death, often from preventable conditions.
• High smoking rates that lead to cancer, heart disease, bronchitis and emphysema.
• High rates of obesity which can put people at risk for diabetes, disability and heart disease.
• High unemployment and poverty rates.
• High numbers of liquor stores and fast-food outlets but few places to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

“For the first time, people have a tool to help identify what is making people in every county unhealthy,” says Patrick Remington, M.D., M.P.H., associate dean for public health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “We hope this kind of check-up will mobilize community leaders to take action and invest in programs and policy changes that make their counties healthier places to live.”

The online Rankings, available at www.countyhealthrankings.org, include snapshots of U.S. counties with a color-coded map that compares each county’s overall health with other counties in each of the 50 states. Researchers used the latest data available for each county, ranging from 2000 to 2008, to develop the Rankings.

For more information, visit www.countyhealthrankings.org.

Click below for an important brochure from the Centers for Disease Control about the H1N1 flu

Below is the introduction. You can download the entire report here: http://www.jointcenter.org/hpi/sites/all/files/raceethnicityandhealthcarereform.pdf

Health care reform proposals before Congress offer potential for great progress in improving health care affordability, access and quality for all Americans—an opportunity not seen for decades. Little discussed, however, is that major provisions are likely to have a significant impact on minorities as they present opportunities to redress longstanding inequities. Moreover, the bills which have emerged from House and Senate committees explicitly recognize the need to reduce disparities; each includes provisions intended to support initiatives targeting racial and ethnic minorities and language access services. While both leading bills offer solutions to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health, each one differs in the level of its commitment and approach.

This issue brief identifies, analyzes and compares provisions which explicitly address the health and health care needs of racial and ethnic minorities within the two leading Congressional health care reform proposals: The Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3962)passed in the House of Representatives on November 7, 2009; and The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (H.R. 3590) introduced in the Senate on November 18, 2009, as a merged version of the Senate Finance Committee’s America’s Health Future Act (S.1796) and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions’ (HELP) Affordable Health Choices Act (S. 1697). Additionally, this issue brief explores the potential implications of broad health care reforms for racial and ethnic minorities. Also discussed is how each bill could decrease disparities and improve minority health, where each falls short in advancing these goals, as well as the transitional challenges and questions for the future should health care reform legislation be enacted.

INCREASING PARTICIPATION OF ASIAN AMERICANS
AND PACIFIC ISLANDERS IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. The more than 16 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) across our country havehelped build a strong and vibrant America. The AAPI communities represent many ethnicities and languages that span generations,and their shared achievements are an important part of the American experience. They have started businesses and generated jobs, including founding some of our Nation’s most successful and innovative enterprises. The AAPI communities have made important contributions to science and technology, culture and the arts, and the professions, including business, law,medicine, education, and politics.

While we acknowledge the many contributions of the AAPI communities to our Nation, we also recognize the challenges still faced by many AAPIs. Of the more than a million AAPI-owned businesses, many firms are small sole-proprietorships that continue to need assistance to access available resources such as business development counseling and small business loans. The AAPI community also continues to face barriers to employment and workplace advancement. Specific challenges experienced by AAPI subgroups include lower college-enrollment rates by Pacific Islanders than other ethnic groups and high poverty rates among Hmong Americans, Cambodian Americans,Malaysian Americans, and other individual AAPI communities. Additionally, one in five non-elderly AAPIs lacks health insurance.

The purpose of this order is to establish a President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and a White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Each will work to improve the quality of life andopportunities for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders throughincreased access to, and participation in, Federal programs inwhich they may be underserved. In addition, each will work to advance relevant evidence-based research, data collection, and analysis for AAPI populations and subpopulations.

To read the rest of the Executive Order, see below.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

HIV prevalence among African Americans is ten times greater than the prevalence among whites. This racial disparity in HIV prevalence has persisted in the face of both governmental and private actions, involving many billions of dollars, to combat HIV. In the November 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examine factors responsible for the stark racial disparities in HIV infection in the U.S. and the now concentrated epidemic among African Americans.

The article is “Ending the Epidemic of Heterosexual HIV Transmission Among African Americans” by Adaora A. Adimora, MD, MPH, Victor J. Schoenbach, PhD, and Michelle A. Floris-Moore, MD. It appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 37, Issue 5 (November 2009) published by Elsevier.