Every week, Kaiser Health News reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web.
[a聽financial-analysis website]:聽The Most And Least Expensive Cities For Health Care
It鈥檚 bewildering for anyone who has ever paid for a health procedure out of pocket when health insurance doesn鈥檛 cover the full cost (or when the person is uninsured in the first place): Why does health care cost the way it does, and why do the costs fluctuate depending on where you go and who you see? A colonoscopy, for example, can range from $500 to $3,000 鈥� a large difference depending on how health insurance providers negotiate rates. And when you鈥檙e paying out of pocket, every dollar counts (just ask the man who robbed a bank so he could get health care in prison).聽 鈥β燱e took a look at the top 100 cities in the U.S. by population to see which cities were spending the most and least on health care (Mike Dang, 7/25).
[public radio]: Differences in Medicaid Spending, State By State
Explore the data behind the study used to create our interactive map on Medicaid spending. It鈥檚 the first study to give an apples-to-apples comparison of how states spend their money, and the results might surprise you [7/27].
: Foreign-Trained Health Professionals Put On Path To Practice In U.S.
Dr. (Maria Angelica) Montenegro is among the unknown numbers of untapped foreign-trained physicians living in the U.S. Many are either unemployed or work jobs far below their education level. They are taxi drivers, delivery people, housekeepers and restaurant workers. There are thousands of examples, including a Russian physician who was working construction and a Yemeni doctor who was a parking garage attendant, said Dr. Jose Ram贸n Fern谩ndez-Pe帽a, founder and director of the Welcome Back Initiative. The program helps foreign-trained health professionals enter the U.S. health care work force through nine centers nationwide. Since the initiative began in San Francisco in 2001, Welcome Back centers have helped 11,347 health professionals from 152 countries. Thirty-six percent of those are physicians, 42% are nurses, 13% are dentists and 9% are other health professionals (Carolyne Krupa, 7/25).
: Unfortunate Side-Effects
America鈥檚 new health law would bring change, Democrats said, but not too much. In the battle over Obamacare, no matter was more delicate than the fear that Americans would lose their insurance. 鈥淚f you like your health care plan,鈥� Barack Obama assured a town-hall meeting in 2009, 鈥測ou can keep your health care plan.鈥� Two years later, the debate continues. The basic question is whether America will abandon the current system of employer-sponsored health care in favour of insurance offered through state exchanges. A new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) suggests that it might (Schumpeter, 7/26).
: How States Could Ban Abortion With 鈥楻oe鈥� Still Standing
For decades, the debate over abortion rights has centered on a single court decision, Roe v. Wade, and the possibility of its overturn. Overturning Roe has become the holy grail of the antichoice movement, and many states have 鈥渢rigger laws鈥� on the books that would ban abortion immediately should the Supreme Court overturn Roe. Unfortunately for antichoicers, the justices resist overturning precedent; more importantly, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the likely swing vote on any abortion case before the court, upheld Roe on the basis of precedent in 1992. However, the recent surge in state legislation against abortion demonstrates that antichoice activists have figured out a new strategy: eliminating legal abortion without directly overturning Roe (Amanda Marcotte and Jesse Taylor, 7/14).
: Male Contraception May Be A Reality Sooner Than We Think
The birth control pill certainly represents a victory for women鈥檚 rights, but the realities of taking a daily medication, not to mention the expense and some unpleasant side effects makes it seem more a burden for women than a reproductive equalizer. Enter male birth control, which, researchers say, might finally help men and women to shoulder life鈥檚 responsibilities together in about 10 years. 鈥� [But] before men have the opportunity to try or pass on any new method of contraception, these options have to prove themselves in rigorous trials. (Yet) even that validation may not be enough to convince some men that contraception is an equal opportunity responsibility (Meredith Melnick, 7/27).