The Lancet: Universal health coverage for US military veterans within reach, but many still lack coverage
2014-11-24
(Press-News.org) Over a million US military veterans lacked healthcare coverage in 2012, according to new estimates published in The Lancet. While many people believe that all veterans are covered by the Veterans Affairs health care system, less than half (8.9 million) of the 22 million veterans in the US are covered by VA health benefits, and most veterans are covered by private health insurance. Uninsured veterans are more likely to be young, single, African American, and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, the authors of this viewpoint estimate that universal health coverage for veterans is within reach, thanks to the Affordable Care Act and its Medicaid expansion and subsidies for private health care. According to the authors, 87% of currently uninsured veterans could be eligible for health coverage through the Medicaid expansion, via the subsidized private health insurance market, or by enrolling in VA health benefits. Uninsured veterans are more likely to be clustered in states that have rejected the ACA's Medicaid expansion. Of the top five states with the highest number of uninsured veterans, four [1] are states that have rejected the expansion (the fifth, California, has accepted the expansion, but is also the most populous state in the union).
"Largely on account of the Affordable Care Act, the goal of universal health coverage for veterans is closer than ever,"* explains author Dave A Chokshi. "There remain political hurdles to achieving this goal, both in the false impression that the VA already provides universal coverage, and the decision by several states to reject the ACA's Medicaid expansion. While eligibility for insurance is not tantamount to access to care, universal coverage is an important first step towards high-quality healthcare."*
INFORMATION:
NOTES TO EDITORS:
*Quotes direct from author and cannot be found in text of Article
[1] There are an estimated 126000 uninsured veterans in Texas, 95000 in Florida, 54000 in North Carolina, and 53000 in Georgia
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2014-11-24
There has been a growing concern that modern society is increasingly lonely. In 2006, a New York Times article "The Lonely American Just Got a Bit Lonelier" highlighted research that shows a decline in social engagement--people are less likely to join clubs, have fewer close friends, and are less likely to perceive others as trustworthy. However, studies have also shown an increase in extraversion and self-esteem, which suggests loneliness is decreasing.
In an effort to study the societal trend of loneliness, researchers from the University of Queensland and Griffith ...
2014-11-24
Abnormal connections between neurons are the likely cause of motor coordination issues seen in autism spectrum disorder. Using a mouse model of autism, scientists from the University of Chicago identified a malfunctioning neural circuit associated with reduced capacity for motor learning. This appears to arise from an inability to eliminate unneeded neural connections in the brain. They report their findings Nov. 24 in Nature Communications.
"We have identified synaptic abnormalities that may play a role in motor problems typically seen in children with autism," said ...
2014-11-24
Adult survivors of retinoblastoma, a type of eye cancer that usually develops in early childhood, have few cognitive or social problems decades following their diagnosis and treatment. That's the conclusion of a study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The findings offer good news for patients, but it's important to continue to monitor for long-term effects as the brain changes throughout life.
While most children with retinoblastoma are successfully cured, little is known about the long-term health of survivors. ...
2014-11-24
ATLANTA--Promoting healthy gut microbiota, the bacteria that live in the intestine, can help treat or prevent metabolic syndrome, a combination of risk factors that increases a person's risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke, according to researchers at Georgia State University and Cornell University. Their findings are published in the journal Gastroenterology.
The study, a follow-up to the research team's previous paper in Science, uses an improved technical approach, making the results more significant.
The research team includes Dr. Andrew Gewirtz, a professor ...
2014-11-24
A gene associated with schizophrenia plays a role in brain development and may help to explain the biological process of the disease, according to new Rutgers research.
In the study, published in Biological Psychiatry, Bonnie Firestein, professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, says too much protein expressed by the NOS1AP gene, which has been associated with schizophrenia, causes abnormalities in brain structure and faulty connections between nerve cells that prevent them from communicating properly.
Firestein's research indicates that an overabundance ...
2014-11-24
Being in a position of power can fundamentally change the way you speak, altering basic acoustic properties of the voice, and other people are able to pick up on these vocal cues to know who is really in charge, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
We tend to focus on our words when we want to come across as powerful to others, but these findings suggest that basic acoustic cues also play an important role:
"Our findings suggest that whether it's parents attempting to assert authority over ...
2014-11-24
Babies start breathing in the womb, inhaling and exhaling irregularly at first, and then gradually more and more, until the day when they're born and have to do it all the time. But premature babies sometimes have trouble. They stop breathing periodically, sometimes for 20 or 30 seconds at a time. Sometimes they're fine, and sometimes they're not, and doctors struggle to help them. That may soon change, however, thanks to a two-month-old patient at UConn Health with a rare connexin mutation, and his doctor's willingness to call for help. The resulting collaboration between ...
2014-11-24
Repeat suicide attempts and deaths by suicide were roughly 25 percent lower among a group of Danish people who underwent voluntary short-term psychosocial counseling after a suicide attempt, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research suggests.
The findings are believed to be the first to show that talk therapy-focused suicide prevention actually works, averting future suicide attempts in this very high-risk population. Although just six-to-ten talk therapy sessions were provided, researchers found long-term benefits: Five years after the counseling ...
2014-11-24
Over a million US military veterans lacked healthcare coverage in 2012, according to new estimates published in The Lancet. While many people believe that all veterans are covered by the Veterans Affairs health care system, less than half (8.9 million) of the 22 million veterans in the US are covered by VA health benefits, and most veterans are covered by private health insurance. Uninsured veterans are more likely to be young, single, African American, and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, the authors of this viewpoint estimate that universal health coverage ...
2014-11-21
Changes to the structure of the protein histone H3.3 may play a key role in silencing genes that regulate cancer cell growth, according to a study led by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published online this month in the journal Nature Communications. According to the authors, this is the first study to identify this protein as a key regulator in cellular senescence, a process in which cells stop multiplying.
Cellular senescence has garnered significant scientific interest of late because it may be one key to prevent the initiation ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] The Lancet: Universal health coverage for US military veterans within reach, but many still lack coverage
