In today's world, we are faced with soaring healthcare costs, and concurrently tighter budgetary controls on medical allowances, and research and education monies; our first duty is to help those afflicted to recover to the greatest extent possible, and to help them in understanding their disease, its management, and how to achieve the highest quality of life possible. Commensurate with this needs to be the ongoing funding and cost management objectives requisite to invest in making headway in getting one-step ahead of the disease for the salvation of our children, and hence, our collective future.

As the demand for healthcare increases, the basic resources of medicine will be strained. The costs associated with medicine have increased and access has decrease, not only for those who are positive but also for individuals with other health problems.

Because of the demand for coverage, the medical professions are currently experiencing a major shortage of medical professionals, from Doctors to medical technicians. This scarcity of professionals will continue to increase over time as these professionals seek better paying jobs, better working conditions, or just drop out of this profession.

Those countries with National Health Insurance have seen their costs increase; and for the citizens of those countries, they have seen their taxes increase to cover these increased costs.

In the United States, the employer has largely paid for Health Insurance as a perk for being an employee. Those companies are now passing those increases on to their employees. Many of these employees have discontinued their respective health insurance coverage because they simply cannot afford these increases. American businesses have had their profit margins squeezed by the rising costs of healthcare.

Articles:

Document Name & Link to Document	Description	File Type/Size **
$3 Trillion in US Health Spending is Projected	$3 Trillion in US Health Spending is Projected 28 kb HTML Healthcare spending will top $2.8 trillion in the US by 2011, driving an even larger chunk of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) than previously forecast
AIDS	Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is currently a growing, worldwide, fatal, pandemic. Destruction of CD4+ T cells predisposes infected individuals to a wide range of opportunistic infections, tumors, dementia and death. "The reality of AIDS in Botswana is so grim it is hard to grasp. In the main hospital in the capital city, Gaborone, 70% of beds in the pediatric ward are for children with complications of AIDS.
AIDS	Diagnosis-based risk adjusters. Insurance Report	PDF / 363KB
Assessing the Value of American Investment in Medical Research	Assess the Value of American Investment in Medical Research 33 kb HTML How does a venture capitalist decide where to invest his money? He compares the potential for return against the risk, and when the return appears to be significant and the risk isn't too great, he invests. As our country makes decisions about its future investment in medical research, it might apply a similar standard.
COBRA Rules	Extending Your Employer-Based Health Insurance
Containing the Costs while maintaining Quality	Methods of Insurance Companies to reduce to cost of care
Controversial Hepatitis C Virus-The Case for Selective Treatment	Hepatitis C: Natural History and Independent Predictors of Adverse Outcomes
Cost of Hepatitis C Virus in relation to insurance costs	Healthcare Cost of Hepatitis C-infected Members in a Managed Care Organization
Direct cost of Needle sticks and Blood exposures	Direct cost of needle sticks to At-Risk body fluids-data from 2 hospitals, Journal Article	PDF / 48KB
Disease management	Financial & Risk consideration for disease management, Insurance Report	PDF / 211KB
Estimate of future Hepatitis C Virus morbidity, mortality	Future Hepatitis C Virus Morbidity, Mortality, and Costs in the US, Journal Article	PDF / 133 KB
Financing & Quality of HIV/AIDS care	Medicaid Program Policy Trends: Financing and Quality of HIV Care
Health care exposure.	Healthcare workers' risk of exposure and the data collected concerning consequences of exposure	PDF / 471KB
Health Insurer Benefits from Decline in Some Cost	Reports improved first-quarter earnings and raises its profits forecast for year, becoming latest health insurer to benefit from nationwide trend of moderating hospital and drug costs.
Health Spending Growing faster than US Economy	Federal health economists reported January 8, health expenditures outpaced the growth of the economy
HEALTHCARE WORKERS SORE OVER NEEDLES FDA WON’T BAN	A nursing safety expert asked how many hundreds of medical workers need to die from contaminated needle sticks before the agency bans standard needles and syringes that are causing the injuries
HIPPA Portability	Description of HIPPA rules and regulations	PDF / 50KB
Insurance	Insurance report - Capitation puts the risk of large claims on the providers, there are questions about the best way to structure this change	PDF / 462KB
Insurance claims	Physicians & other providers that accept risk through capitation arrangements may need protection against losses in years with higher than expected levels of medical costs-Insurance Report	PDF / 462KB
Insurance privacy issues	Administrative Simplification and Privacy Issues for Health Plans-Insurance Report	PDF / 336KB
Insurance-Actuarial aspects of Dread Disease	Insurance Report on methods to deal with infectious diseases	PDF / 526KB
Insurance-Hepatitis C Virus-health, law protection.	Report on Hepatitis C Virus explaining the potential cost that have an impact on businesses and explaining the unfolding Hepatitis C Virus epidemic	PDF / 417KB
Madison Ave. has growing role in Drug Research	Television ads have helped turn some prescription drugs into billion-dollar products, is expanding role in drug development
NEEDLE STICK RISK	Hundreds of medical workers become infected with the AIDS or hepatitis viruses from accidental punctures each year
Notifying patients exposed to blood products associated with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease: integrating science, legal duties and ethical mandates	THE ISSUE OF NOTIFYING PEOPLE who have been exposed to blood products that have been associated with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) has arisen at a time when the Canadian blood system is under intense scrutiny. As a result, the Canadian Red Cross Society issued a recommendation to health care institutions that recipients of CJD-associated blood products be identified, notified and counselled. Although Canadian jurisprudence in the realm of informed consent may support a policy of individual notification, a review of the scientific evidence and the applicable ethical principles arguably favours a policy of a more general public notification. Indeed, situations such as this require a unique approach to the formation of legal and ethical duties, one that effectively integrates all relevant factors. As such, the authors argue that individual notification is currently not justified. Nevertheless, if a system of general notification is implemented (e.g., through a series of public health announcements), it should provide, for people who wish to know, the opportunity to find out whether they were given CJD-associated products.	Pdf 114 kb
Patients paying larger percentage of Medical Costs	Faced with "rapidly rising" prescription drug spending, which is climbing at about 15% per year, employers and insurers have increasingly shifted the costs to patients, who "may soon pay even more,..."
Policy	Policy Statements adopted by the Governing Council of the APHA, Nov. 10, 1999	PDF / 486KB
Poor State of Finance in Eastern Africa	Direct correlation between GDP growth and financial deepening and penetration
Prescription drug Sales Increased in US	Retail prescription drug spending in the US increased for the fifth straight year in 2000
Public Safety Nets	Report on how communities and extended families try to cope with difficulties in the absence of government intervention	PDF / 137KB
The Business of Medicine	"One of the signs of a cultured society is taking care of its young and its elderly," Dr. Trujillo emphasized. "If we stop taking Medicare, the consequences will be tragic."
The Other Drug War-Public citizen	Big Pharma's 625 Washington Lobbyists	PDF / 318KB
The Status and Trends of Infectious Diseases	United Nations Report on effect of HIV/AIDS and the affect the disease is having on countries hardest hit with this illness
Tip of the Iceberg	Insurance Report on the Hepatitis C Epidemic and the consequences of the illness	PDF / 445KB
Work related death A continuing epidemic	Journal Article concerning occupational exposure to an infectious disease	PDF / 71KB

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