The Health News USA January 14 2018

• Millions who rely on Medicaid, America’s biggest public health insurance program, could be required to have a job if they want to hold on to their coverage in the future. The Trump administration has unveiled a major policy shift that offers a path for states seeking to tie Medicaid eligibility to work requirements.
• About 10,000 attendees, mostly confident men in well-cut suits and even nicer watches, are packing the elegant Westin Saint Francis Hotel for the invite-only J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. For many of these investors, health providers, insurers and entrepreneurs at the nation’s largest and most prestigious health investment conference, it’s all about the deal — and the after-hours parties.
• The American Cancer Society said that cancer deaths have fallen yet again, thanks mostly to huge declines in smoking. More than 2.3 million people have not died of cancer since 1991 who otherwise would have if cancer rates had remained unchanged, the group said in its annual report on cancer.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 14th of January 2018. Read by Tabetha Moreto.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/11/trump-medicaid-work-requirements

Millions who rely on Medicaid, America’s biggest public health insurance program, could be required to have a job if they want to hold on to their coverage in the future. The Trump administration has unveiled a major policy shift that offers a path for states seeking to tie Medicaid eligibility to work requirements. Seema Verma, head of the federal centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, said work and community involvement can make a positive difference to people’s health and lives. But the plan is likely to face strong political opposition and even legal challenges.

Medicaid is the nation’s largest public health insurance program, providing health benefits to nearly seventy four million Americans, mostly low-income adults. Many recipients already have jobs that don’t provide health insurance and people are not legally required to hold a job to be on Medicaid. But states traditionally can seek federal waivers to test new ideas for the program.
The administration’s latest action seeks to allow states to apply the rules in such a way that would allow them to impose work requirements on “able-bodied” adults. Ten states, mostly conservative ones, have applied for waivers involving requirements for jobs or community involvement for most Medicaid recipients.

A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that almost sixty percent of working-age adults on Medicaid are already employed.

https://khn.org/news/must-attend-health-conference-all-about-the-deals-amid-uncertainty-for-millions/

About ten thousand attendees, mostly confident men in well-cut suits and even nicer watches, are packing the elegant Westin Saint Francis Hotel for the invite-only J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. For many of these investors, health providers, insurers and entrepreneurs at the nation’s largest and most prestigious health investment conference, it’s all about the deal — and the after-hours parties.

The J.P. Morgan gathering comes at a jarring time when you consider that the other world of health care is flooded with uncertainty for the millions of ordinary Americans who inhabit it. They face a precarious political landscape in which the future of the Affordable Care Act remains uncertain and Republican leaders in Congress mull dramatic cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.

John Baackes, CEO of the nation’s largest public health plan, L.A. Care, which insures two point one million low-income patients, said if his enrollees wandered into the conference, “they’d think they were in a foreign land and that this has nothing to do with them.” Much of U.S. healthcare is underwritten by public dollars, but people here didn’t come to talk about that or rising costs, particularly for prescription drugs.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cancer-deaths-fall-thanks-mostly-drop-smoking-n834686

The American Cancer Society said that cancer deaths have fallen yet again, thanks mostly to huge declines in smoking. More than two point three million people have not died of cancer since nineteen ninety one who otherwise would have if cancer rates had remained unchanged, the group said in its annual report on cancer. Yet four thousand seven hundred Americans are diagnosed with cancer every day and cancer remains the Number two cause of death in the United States, right behind heart disease.

The report has discovered that the cancer death rate fell one point seven percent from two thousand fourteen to two thousand fifteen. Since nineteen ninety one, the cancer death rate has fallen twenty six percent. It predicts that one point seven million people will be diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. in two thousand eighteen, and that more than six hundred nine thousand will die of it.

The group predicts that there will be two hundred thirty four thousand lung cancer cases and one hundred fifty four thousand lung cancer deaths in two thousand eighteen; two hundred sixty eight thousand breast cancer cases and forty one thousand deaths; one hundred sixty four thousand prostate cancer cases and twenty nine thousand deaths.

The American Cancer Society says that woman has a one in eight chance of developing breast cancer over her lifetime; a man has a one in nine chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer.