Health Highlights: March 12, 2009
Mar. 12 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
Report Questions Value of U.S. Health Spending
U.S. health spending is too high and delivers too little benefit, according to a report released Thursday by a group called the Business Roundtable, which represents the CEOs of major companies.
The United States spent $2.4 trillion on health care, or $1,928 per person in 2006. That's at least 2.5 times more per person than any other developed country, yet the health of Americans lags behind those nations, said the Associated Press.
The report factored health measures and costs into a 100-point "value" scale and found that the United States is 23 points behind five leading economic competitors: Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. All those nations have public health coverage for their citizens.
The U.S. lags even further behind (46 points) when compared with emerging economic competitors China, Brazil and India, according to the report.
"Spending more would not be a problem if our health scores were proportionately higher," Dr. Arnold Milstein, one of the authors of the study, told the AP. "But what this study shows is that the U.S. is not getting higher levels of health and quality of care."
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Former NYC Health Chief Likely to Be Named as FDA Leader
Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner, is likely to be nominated this week as President Barack Obama's choice to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, The New York Times reports.
Hamburg, 53, would succeed Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, who led the agency from 2005 until last January. The Obama administration was also expected to name Baltimore's health commissioner, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, as Hamburg's chief deputy. Sharfstein led Obama's transition team for the FDA, the Times said.
Hamburg was appointed by former Mayor David N. Dinkins as acting city health commissioner in 1991 and became commissioner the following year. When former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani took office in 1994, she was asked to stay on the job. Under Hamburg's lead, a tuberculosis control program produced sharp declines in the incidence of the disease in New York, and child immunizations also rose, the paper reported.
