Tag Archives: health care

A Busy Day in Brussels || An Environmental Success Story || A “Paradigm Shift” in Health Care

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Busy in Brussels, Secretary Clinton discusses NATO and Pakistan. There’s hope ahead of a crucial vote in Sudan. A new initiative is spurring interfaith action to improve Muslim countries. China and the U.S. are partnering on air quality. Counterfeit drugs are a pandemic. And finally, experts call for a “paradigm shift” in health care in Africa.


NATO’s 21st Century Threats
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates urges members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to focus on 21st century threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and ballistic missiles. “Relying on the strategies of the past simply will not suffice” says Clinton, right with Gates. The two also express support for the alliance’s proposed Strategic Concept.


Taxing Pakistan’s Wealthy
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urges Pakistan to collect taxes on its wealthier citizens in order to help pay for the country’s recovery from flooding that could ultimately cost tens of billions of dollars.

The Timeline in Sudan
Following a week-long visit to southern Sudan, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice reports that the Sudanese people remain hopeful ahead of a January 9, 2011 referendum on the region’s independence.

“Partners for a New Beginning”
Partners for a New Beginning (PNB), an initiative joining American private sector and civil society leaders to strengthen opportunities in Muslim countries, adds further support to President Obama’s vision of “a new beginning” for the United States and Muslim communities across the globe.

A U.S.-China Success Story
AirNow International, a joint U.S.-China air quality program, is cited as a bilateral success by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jackson during a visit to the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

The Danger of Counterfeit Drugs
The key to fighting a global “pandemic” of counterfeit drugs is building partnerships among drug companies, pharmaceutical trade groups, law enforcement and customs officials worldwide, experts say. Rubie Mages, a security official with U.S. drug manufacturer Pfizer, says pharmaceutical companies must “monitor the supply chain” and report counterfeit drugs to authorities.

Changing Health Care in Africa
Experts say a “paradigm shift” is needed in health care in Africa to include greater focus on the prevention and treatment of noncommunicable diseases like diabetes and not just infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS. Silver Bahendeka, chair of the International Diabetes Association’s Africa region, predicts that “Africa will have the highest percentage of increase in the number of people with diabetes over the next 20 years.” Left, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is examined for diabetes in South Africa.

Obama explains new Healthcare.gov website

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Hello! My name is Ned Collins-Chase, and I will be contributing to the Obama Today blog with Michelle while I work as a State Department intern for the rest of the summer. I have been interested in Obama’s career ever since watching his address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. More recently however, his stance on healthcare has been of particular interest. As a student who graduates college within a year, I have a lot of questions about how the new healthcare bill will affect me personally, so I was eager to learn more when I heard he was launching a new site.

President Barack Obama released a video today, explaining the new Healthcare.gov website, a part of the new Affordable Care Act signed into law in late March.

The new website, which Obama demonstrates in the video, is designed to make it easier for consumers to view their healthcare options, as well as their rights under the new legislation. It allows users to search for their best insurance options based on their location and employment status, and for businesses to shop for healthcare options for their employees.

Price estimates will be available on the site by October 2010. President Obama expresses hope that users will find Healthcare.gov an easy tool for finding answers to all their healthcare questions in one place. “That’s why we passed this reform,” the President commented in the video. “[T]o put Americans in control of their healthcare.”

More facts on the new website are available at the White House website.

Mississippi Delta Taking Tips from Iran on Health Care

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Working at the State Department, I don’t get too much good news about U.S.-Iran relations. Iran’s nuclear program and its abysmal human rights record have driven a wedge between the two governments. So it was a refreshing surprise to go home and find a very upbeat article in this month’s AARP Bulletin about friendly cooperation between ordinary Iranians and Americans.

Dr. Aaron Shirley

Dr. Aaron Shirley

The article – “Iranian Cure for the Delta’s Blues” – focuses on the efforts of Dr. Aaron Shirley, a 77-year-old pediatrician who has worked for decades trying to bring decent health care to the impoverished and underserved people of the Mississippi Delta. Shirley was discouraged about the ongoing misery of the people he is trying to help until he met Iranian-born Dr. Mohammad Shahbazi, chair of the Department of Behavioral and Environmental Health at Jackson State University.

Dr. Mohammad Shahbazi with his wife, Dr. Zahra Sarraf, a faculty member at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran

Dr. Mohammad Shahbazi with his wife, Dr. Zahra Sarraf, a faculty member at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran

Shahbazi was able to organize a trip to Iran – with the tacit approval of the National Institutes of Health and Iran’s ministry of health – for Shirley and other American health care professionals so that they could learn about that country’s ingenious methods for providing health care to poor, rural communities.

The 2009 trip provided the Americans with a look at Iran’s system of using trained locals working out of “health houses.” This method, which has won kudos from the World Health Organization, has eliminated health disparities between rural and urban populations over the last 30 years and reduced infant mortality in rural areas by tenfold. The American doctors are now trying to replicate an adapted version of the Iranian system by establishing Mississippi “health houses” and training single mothers currently on welfare to staff them.

The story made me wonder if there could be more grassroots efforts for U.S.-Iran friendship. Do you have any to share?

Sharing some jokes with the press

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Barack Obama

At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner May 1, President Obama was the subject of a few jokes by comedian Jay Leno. But he also made a few of his own.
This annual dinner, known as one of Washington’s hottest tickets, brings reporters, political leaders and Hollywood celebrities together for an evening of entertainment by comedians and the commander-in-chief.

Here’s a few of my favorite Obama lines:

  • “Some Republicans have suggested that the bill contains a few ‘secret’ provisions. That’s ridiculous. There aren’t a few secret provisions in the health care plan. There are like hundreds.”
  • “I happen to know that my approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth.”

In honor of World Press Freedom Day, I should note that the president did have a few serious comments for the journalists in attendance. “Every one of you, even the most cynical among you, understands and cherishes the function of a free press in the preservation of our system of government and our way of life,” the president said.

Check out the video of Obama’s remarks on the White House Web site.

Obama Presents National Health Care to Iowa

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President Barack Obama traveled to the State of Iowa Thursday to present the newly signed universal health care legislation.

“On Tuesday – after a year of debate, a century of trying, after so many of you shared your stories and your heartaches and your hopes – that promise was finally fulfilled. And today, health insurance reform is the law of the land all across America,” Obama said at the University of Iowa’s Field House in Iowa City.

Obama signed the complex and health care bill into law Wednesday after a yearlong debate among congressional legislators and several alterations to the original proposal. The plan was also debated in town hall meetings across the United States. But Congress voted to pass it Sunday by a vote of 219-212.

This Midwestern state is significant because the Iowa Caucuses are held every presidential election year and are the first major step towards selecting nominees for the U.S. presidency.

In Iowa, the president focused his address on the advantages to small-business owners, citing a local bookstore owner’s commitment to keep his employees covered.

“Starting today, small business owners can sit down at the end of the week, look at their expenses, and they can begin calculating how much money they’re going to save,” Obama told the crowd of several thousand people. “And maybe they can even use those savings to not only provide insurance but also create jobs. This health care tax credit is pro-jobs, it is pro-business, and it starts this year, and it’s starting because of you.”

Obama also named local citizens who were not covered by their insurances for various procedures.

“I met David Gallagher … [who] was denied coverage because he once had a complication-free hernia surgery,” Obama said. “But now, because of this reform, David Gallagher can finally have access to health insurance again. That starts this year. This year, insurance companies will no longer be able to drop people’s coverage when they get sick,” he said, “or place lifetime limits or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care they can receive.”

President signs health care bill into law

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Barack Obama

President Obama was joined by Vice President Biden and dozens of others at the White House today for what many are calling a historic moment – the signing of the first major health care reform bill in decades.

“Today, after almost a century of trying; today, after over a year of debate; today, after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America,” President Obama said amidst applauds.

“The bill I’m signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see.”

It will take four years to implement all of the new pieces of legislation, the president said, adding that time was given to ensure that changes were implemented appropriately. But some changes, including tax credits for small business owners to purchase insurance for their employees and protection against insurance companies refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions, will go into effect later this year.

You can watch a video of the bill’s signing on the White House Web site.

“This is what change looks like”

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Barack Obama

As many Americans on the East Coast got ready for bed at the end of the weekend, the House of Representatives cast the votes needed to make President Obama’s health care proposals a reality.

President Obama spoke to the American people shortly after the bill’s passage March 21, “this is what change looks like,” he said. The bill, which has dominated much of the president’s domestic agenda, has gone through months of work in Congress.

One of the most significant health care reforms in decades, the bill provides more affordable health insurance options, the White House says. Among the provisions, it creates an insurance purchasing pool that will help uninsured Americans select among competitive insurance options. It also provides tax credits for small businesses that purchase health insurance for their employees. It requires most Americans to have health insurance or face fines. (This New York Times graphic shows how it will impact Americans.)

The president thanked the many Americans who advocated for changes in health insurance coverage. “Today’s vote answers the dreams of so many who have fought for this reform. To every unsung American who took the time to sit down and write a letter or type out an e-mail hoping your voice would be heard — it has been heard tonight.”

Obama is expected to sign the bill into law tomorrow.

Medical Innovation by Way of Helping Poor

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Christine Kurihara is the manager of special projects in the Stanford Biodesign Program at Stanford University.

Experts and entrepreneurs from around the world discuss what governments can do to promote high-tech entrepreneurship and what the shape of technology entrepreneurship will be in the future.

Many academic programs that focus on health care innovation in developed countries have begun to explore ways of reaching overseas underserved populations with low cost devices and diagnostics. We primarily focus on domestic U.S. needs, but try to find synergies between domestic and overseas components of our Biodesign Program.

In 2001, we launched a fellowship and a course that teach the process of inventing medical devices and accept 8-12 fellows and 50-60 students per year since. The focus has been on training, but several companies launched by graduates of the program actually develop medical devices.

Two independent programs we operate prepare fellows for designing inexpensive medical devices that meet the needs of rural health care in underserved areas of India and East Asia. (First India fellows came to Stanford in 2008.)

We see potential in creating synergy among different parts of Biodesign. We want to see whether the frame of mind developed to find low-cost solutions in India can be recreated in different economic environments. If the cost constraints applied to the India projects affect the thinking of U.S. students and fellows, they may come up with less costly solutions when they design devices for the U.S. market, in a small way helping to address the rising costs of U.S. health care.

To explore that potential, we partnered with the California Healthcare Foundation. Some of our second-year U.S. fellows study needs in Safety Net health centers, hospitals and clinics which serve uninsured or medically underserved patients. The needs identified by fellows drive a new kind of development process that aims at lower cost, simpler design, the use of basic materials and a quicker lab-to-market process. This is not to say we are dumbing down the technology. We simply try to find a way in which cost considerations play a major role in designing new devices.

We have learned much about what that means and how to approach related issues. For example, pediatric needs almost always represent a small market segment and thus rarely drive innovation in the traditional model, the creation of a startup supported by angel or venture investments. Instead our second-year fellows have created a website where they post the needs they discovered during visits to pediatric hospitals. These needs are visible to the entire community of innovators, physicians, parents, engineers, and others, who may have ideas on how to solve related issues. The hope is that the website will help parties identify ideas they have interest in and provide a platform for them to work together on developing the most promising concepts. Those parties could include special interest groups able to fund the development of a particular product.

We have little to report on results as the Web-based project began only recently. However, we continue to explore ways to engage key stakeholders through this platform.

A big week ahead

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I imagine there are a lot of disappointed people in Indonesia and Australia today, as President Obama announced yesterday that he will be postponing next week’s scheduled trip there until June. There was particular interest in his visit among Indonesians, because the president lived in their country when he was a young child.

Analeed and I are disappointed too, as we had big blog plans for the trip. But it’s still an exciting week ahead for the president, who may be on the verge of seeing his health-care bill passed by Congress.

“The president greatly regrets the delay,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “Our international alliances are critical to America’s security and economic progress. But passage of health-insurance reform is of paramount importance, and the president is determined to see this battle through.”

Since his campaign, Obama has made reforming health care among his top domestic priorities. But he’s faced months of challenges along the way as legislation has been debated and changed through Congressional hearings and votes. The House of Representatives could vote Sunday on a bill already approved by the Senate. If this bill, as well as a set of revisions to the original Senate bill previously agreed upon by leaders of both houses, passes, the president could be signing a health care bill into law in a few days.

Do you think the president made the right decision to postpone his trip?

Health care summit

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As many Americans and international audiences know, President Obama has faced many challenges in his quest to implement changes to the U.S. health care system. As health care legislation has recently stalled in Congress, the president brought leaders from both political parties together today to share and debate ideas.

“Part of the goal here,” President Obama said, “is to figure out what are the areas that we do agree on, what are the areas where we don’t agree, and at the end of that process, then make an honest assessment as to whether we can bridge these differences.”

This process lasted hours, and as news reports indicate, was quite heated at times. One exchange between Obama and his former campaign rival, John McCain, is particularly making headlines. McCain accused Democrats of designing and reviewing health care legislation behind closed doors, while the president said the process was indeed transparent.

Do you think Republicans and Democrats can bridge differences?