Surgery News - October 2007 - (Page 5)

OCTOBER 2007 • SURGERY NEWS NEWS 5 Number of Uninsured Americans Continues to Grow B Y M A RY E L L E N S C H N E I D E R Else vier Global Medical Ne ws he number of Americans without health insurance reached 47 million last year, up from 44.8 million in 2005, according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The percentage of individuals without health insurance also rose from 15.3% in 2005 to 15.8% in 2006. This rise includes an increase in the number of uninsured children. The percentage and number of children under age 18 without health insurance increased from 8 million (10.9%) in 2005 to 8.7 million (11.7%) in 2006. Much of the increase in the uninsured rate for children can be attributed to a decline in private coverage, David Johnson, chief of the division of housing and household economic statistics at the Census Bureau, said during a news conference. Overall, the percentage of individuals covered by any type of private insurance plan dropped from 68.5% in 2005 to 67.9% in 2006. And among children, the percentage with private coverage fell from T 65.8% in 2005 to 64.6% in 2006, Mr. Johnson said. At the same time, coverage by government insurance was also down from 27.3% in 2005 to 27% in 2006. The data are compiled from the 2007 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. The increase in the number of uninsured individuals between 2005 and 2006 is “pretty shocking,” said Karen Davis, Ph.D., president of The Commonwealth Fund, especially in a year when states have been under less financial pressure and many have been trying to expand their coverage. The deterioration of dependent coverage among private plans is particularly disturbing and points to the importance of reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) with adequate funding, she said. The number and percentage of uninsured children had been falling consistently between 1998 and 2004 but that progress began to reverse in 2005, said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. These latest data from the Census Bureau show that the country is “losing significant ground” in insuring children, he said, and he called on President Bush to rethink his position on funding for SCHIP. Concerns about the future of SCHIP were addressed in two articles in the September issue of SURGERY NEWS: “SCHIP Funding Deadline Imminent” and “We Must Stand Together to Support Children” (p. 5). ■ Continued from previous page uled to speak at the ASCO meeting. In an editorial in the journal he edits, Nature Clinical Practice Oncology, former National Cancer Institute director Dr. Vincent T. DeVita Jr., decried the cheering and booing that reportedly marked the FDA advisory committee meeting on Provenge as “patient advocacy at its worst. “It is easy to understand how patients and their advocates can be seduced by the age old lure of a harmless drug stimulating the immune system,” Dr. DeVita wrote. But it would set a “dangerous precedent” to approve a vaccine that is short on positive efficacy data (and, he maintains, less promising than other advanced prostate cancer drugs in the pipeline), even if it is “fairly nontoxic,” he said. Meanwhile, Dendreon officials hope that their ongoing study will establish the scientific merit of sipuleucel-T. Patient accrual for the IMPACT trial is nearly complete, with interim survival data expected in mid- to late 2008, Mr. Schiffman said in an interview. “We do understand the frustration that exists,” he said. “Are we frustrated? Yes. But we are also working as best we can to move forward within the regulatory pathway.” In the meantime, Forbes.com reported in July that the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an “informal inquiry” into Dendreon in the context of “multiple insider sales,” including the sale of 202,000 shares by its chief executive officer during volatile trading in which the stock rose to over $20 a share before it plummeted, following the FDA decision, to below $5 a share. Because it is merely a review and not an investigation, the SEC may never announce its findings if it concludes that no wrongdoing occurred, Mr. Schiffman said. ■ ON-Q ® delivers significantly better post-op pain relief outcomes validated in independent, landmark meta-analysis* • 2,141 patients can’t be wrong • 44 randomized controlled studies • Rates of surgical site infections (SSIs) below national average ON-Q labeled for enhanced indications • Significantly better pain relief than narcotics • Significantly less need for narcotics Better patient outcomes across surgical specialties—gets patients on their feet faster • Cardiothoracic • Plastic • Bariatric • General • Obstetric/Gyn • Urological • Orthopedic • Colorectal Now covered by Medicare—payable and therefore medically necessary—for hospital outpatient surgeries BREAKING NEWS Latest results of ON-Q Colorectal Infection Study reveal reduced surgical site infections — more information at www.iflo.com. *Liu SS, Richman JM, Thirlby RC, Wu CL. Efﬁcacy of continuous wound catheters delivering local anesthetic for postoperative analgesia: a quantitative and qualitative systematic review of randomized clinical trials. J Am Coll Surg. 2006;203:914-932. ® Rx Only. For a list of supporting studies, please visit www.iﬂo.com. 20202 Windrow Drive, Lake Forest, CA 92630 Phone: 800-448-3569/949-206-2700 I-Flow, ON-Q, and PainBuster are registered trademarks of I-Flow Corporation. Redeﬁning Recovery is a trademark of I-Flow Corporation. © 2007 I-Flow Corporation. All rights reserved. 8/2007 M1305308 PainBuster ® Redefining Recovery™ Please visit us at www.iflo.com or call 800-448-3569. http://www.iflo.com http://Forbes.com http://www.iflo.com

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Surgery News - October 2007

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