"Health & Medical News"

A California appeals court dealt another blow to health plans over their policy cancellation tactics.

The 4th District Court of Appeal unanimously said insurers have a responsibility to make sure patients’ policy applications are complete and accurate before issuing coverage — not after expensive claims come in the door. Judges said plans cannot revoke patients’ policies unless they fully investigate pre-enrollment forms up front or insurers show patients intentionally misled them.

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A Food and Drug Administration Public Health Advisory was issued Jan. 17 warning that over-the-counter cough and cold products should not be used to treat infants and very young children because very serious side effects can occur, including death, convulsions, rapid heart rates and decreased levels of consciousness.

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Massachusetts physicians say a recent high court ruling expands physician liability well beyond the bounds of the doctor-patient relationship.

The state’s Supreme Judicial Court said doctors are liable not just to patients but also anyone else “foreseeably” put at risk when doctors fail to warn patients about potential side effects of drugs they prescribe.

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A supporter of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently suggested that Barack Obama’s admitted youth drug use could be a liability if he came up against a Republican opponent in the general election, but it seems like only Clinton backers are making Obama’s past use of marijuana and cocaine an issue so far.

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A California appeals court ruling may bode well for physicians and patients in their fight against alleged illegal policy cancellations by health insurance companies.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that the practice of reviewing individuals’ applications after they have submitted claims and then pulling the coverage based on alleged errors “is flatly prohibited” under state insurance laws. The Dec. 4, 2007, decision gave the green light to a patient’s class-action lawsuit alleging that Blue Shield of California tried to dodge claims by looking for supposed misstatements or omissions on patients’ policy forms after approving treatment.

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Washington — For the fifth consecutive year, the National Institutes of Health budget will fail to keep pace with growth in the cost of conducting biomedical research, research groups said.

On Dec. 26, 2007, President Bush signed a $555 billion fiscal 2008 domestic spending package, one week after the House and eight days after the Senate adopted the measure. While the nearly flat NIH budget left research advocates warning that the U.S. edge on biomedical research is eroding, community health centers were thankful for an increase.

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Saying the legislation “moves our country’s health care system in the wrong direction,” President Bush vetoed an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) for a second time, CNN reported Dec. 12.

“Because the Congress has chosen to send me an essentially identical bill that has the same problems as the flawed bill I previously vetoed, I must veto this legislation, too,” Bush said, claiming the $35-billion expansion of the program would encourage families to trade in their private health insurance for the publicly funded SCHIP.

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Police in Denver kept arresting people for marijuana possession even after voters passed a measure making it legal for adults to have an ounce of the drug or less, so advocates are now pushing another ballot item that would order police to make marijuana enforcement their lowest priority.

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The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a revised version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill, but the measure once again fell short of the votes needed to override an expected presidential veto.

CNN reported Oct. 25 that the SCHIP bill passed 265-142, still short of the 290 votes needed for a veto override. The measure included some concessions to Republican concerns about the bill, including tighter income-based caps on eligibility. But it still retained the original bill’s $35-billion price tag and a funding mechanism based on a 61-cent-per-pack increase in the federal tobacco tax.

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In the war against drug-resistant bacteria, physicians finally might start getting some new weapons.

Experts have long complained that the lack of new antibiotics in development or ready for market, combined with the presence of increasingly resistant bacteria, has been exhausting treatment options. There are early signs, however, that this situation may be improving.

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