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New Healthcare Video Game Promotes Single-Payer Reforms
When American patients trust their health to a for-profit insurance company, they"re doing nothing less than gambling with their lives. Registered nurses from the National Nurses Organizing Committee and California Nurses Association today announce the launch of a new healthcare video game, based on this idea, called "You Bet Your Health." The game is part of a wide-ranging public education and political mobilization campaign for single-payer health reforms, which is the choice of nurses and doctors. The game can be viewed at http://www.YouBetYourHealth.com
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Plexxikon Announces PLX4032 Phase 1 Data Showing Objective Responses In Metastatic Melanoma Patients
Plexxikon Inc. today announced preliminary data from a Phase 1 clinical study investigating PLX4032 (R7204). PLX4032 is a novel, oral and highly selective drug that targets the BRAFV600E cancer-causing mutation that occurs in most melanomas and about eight percent of all solid tumors. In patients whose cancer harbors this mutation and who were treated with therapeutic doses of PLX4032, tumor shrinkage and extended progression-free survival have been observed. Currently, two extension studies are being conducted in mutation-positive melanoma and colorectal cancer patients. Following the initial positive findings announced today, larger clinical trials to support a registration program for product approval are targeted to start later in 2009. Plexxikon and Roche are co-developing PLX4032 under their 2006 license and collaboration agreement.
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Department Of Justice, HHS Boosts Number Of Investigators, Prosecutors Looking At Medicare, Medicaid Fraud
HHS and the Department of Justice on Wednesday launched the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team to detect and prevent fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, the Washington Post reports (Johnson, Washington Post, 5/21). DOJ also plans to establish teams to address fraud in the Medicare Part D program and CHIP (Kennedy, AP/Houston Chronicle, 5/20). Wednesday"s announcement also included a recommendation by President Obama"s administration to include $311 million in the fiscal year 2010 budget to address health care fraud, which is a 50% increase from FY 2009. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, efforts to combat health care fraud will contribute to the administration"s health care overhaul plans (Clark/Weaver, McClatchy/Kansas City Star, 5/20). The task force, which will include HHS and DOJ staff members, law enforcement agents and prosecutors, will meet biweekly, CQ HealthBeat reports (Norman, CQ HealthBeat, 5/20). Under the plan, existing enforcement teams in Miami and Los Angeles will be expanded and new teams will be established in Houston and Detroit, where officials say suspicious billing patterns have emerged. In addition, the plan will set up task forces in 10 other major cities, which were not named (AP/Houston Chronicle, 5/20). The enforcement teams will increase site visits to durable medical equipment suppliers upon their enrollment. In addition, officials will expand training to help providers identify and prevent fraud or other mistakes (CQ HealthBeat, 5/20). The task force will use electronic claims data to detect "unusual billing problems," according to the Post (Washington Post, 5/21). HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the task force also intends to simplify billing systems and assist state officials in conducting Medicaid audits (CQ HealthBeat, 5/20). According to Holder, the joint task force will allow officials to share real-time intelligence data on health care fraud by monitoring claims payments, billing patterns and targeted surveillance (AP/Houston Chronicle, 5/20). Money
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Investigation Urgently Needed Into Treatment Of Mentally Ill Immigration Detainees At California Facility, Editorial States

"Although the number of mentally ill immigration detainees" at the La Mesa, Calif.-based private psychiatric hospital Alvarado Parkway Institute "at any one time seems to range from as few as two to only five or so, their situation needs to be addressed quickly," a San Diego Tribune editorial states (San Diego Tribune, 5/19). Some disability rights lawyers and advocates for the mentally ill say that conditions at many of the private facilities, including API, violate state and federal laws governing treatment of mentally ill people. Ann Menasche, a lawyer with the legal advocacy group Disability Rights California, last month sent a letter to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement claiming that after visiting API and interviewing detainees, she found that the conditions are "excessive, unjustifiable and punitive" (Kaiser Health Disparities Report, 5/18).According to the Tribune, "California"s strict patients" rights laws specify that psychiatric patients can have daily visitors, use the telephone, exercise, socialize and be free from restraint unless the chief of the facility determines that a specific individual is a threat to himself or others," but, according to Menasche, patients at API are being denied those rights. The editorial adds that the conditions Menasche describes "may sound appalling, but it is unclear whether they are proper for the circumstances," and an "independent probe by the state Department of Public Health ... is needed to determine whether the detainees are being treated properly" (San Diego Tribune, 5/19). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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