Going to work sick can impact your recovery time, co-workers’ health, and potentially customers depending on the job. Sick food workers, regardless of the location of the worker in the food supply chain, can cause others to get sick. The Food Chain Workers Alliance’s new report shows that more than half of workers go to work sick. Handling food while sick can spread diseases like Hepatitis A, E. coli, Salmonella, and Shigella. The CDC estimates that 3,000 Americans die of foodborne disease each year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, began a conference series that started yesterday titled “Weight of the Nation”.  This conference coincides with a public health HBO project that involves CDC, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente.

Recognizing that diabetes is a serious disease with costly impact on the 26 million individuals who already have it and the millions more who will develop it as well as on the nation’s already taxed health care system, CSG is undertaking a diabetes initiative in 2012 and 2013.

CSG will offer a Diabetes Policy Academy during the National Leadership Conference in La Quinta, Calif. on May 17^th from 8 a.m. to 12 noon.

In the 12 years since New Hampshire mandated health insurance companies to cover contraceptive services, no one has asked for repeal.  That is, until the controversy broke out last month over exempting religious organizations from President Obama’s national mandate, New Hampshire Rep. Terie Norelli told CSG. The 1999 legislation, which Norelli co-sponsored, does not contain any exemption for religious organizations. 

States already have grappled with insurance coverage of contraceptives before the Obama administration issues rules in 2012 called for under the Affordable Care Act. Twenty-six states have passed laws mandating insurance coverage for contraceptives; another two have administrative rulings requiring coverage. Nineteen states also have included exemption provisions for religious organizations. The Hawaii statute was the model used for the Obama compromise on exemptions.

Policymakers in the states and territories (“the states”) are facing two major health care dilemmas in 2012—Medicaid spending and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid  enrollment continues to grow, federal stimulus funds have disappeared and in many states providers are pressing for increased reimbursement. States also must grapple with complying with mandates in the federal health care reform law. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the law sometime in 2012. In the meantime, states must decide how far to go in their own implementation.

Top-of-the-mind health care topics in states are Medicaid and implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act. Medicaid enrollment continues to grow, federal stimulus funds have disappeared, and in many states providers are pressuring for increased reimbursement. States also must grapple with complying with mandates in the federal Affordable Care Act. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the law sometime in 2012. In the meantime, states must decide how far to go in their own implementation.

Governor Beverly Perdue announced late in December that North Carolina's Medicaid program saved nearly $1 billion between 2007 and 2010 by implementing medical homes. The state-commissioned Milliman study found that North Carolina avoided spending $984 million through enrolling 1.1 million Medicaid beneficiaries in medical homes.