Insights

<p>Amid the election-season clamor over health reform and some major insurers’ recent decision <a href="http://www.latimes.com/health/la-fi-kids-health-insurance-20100921,0,79… stop offering new child-only policies</a>, there are <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_16137343">substantial changes rolling out on September 23</a>.</p>

<p>Here’s what we’re reading today:</p> <p><strong>Birth Control:</strong> Now that the new “morning after” contraception pill known as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/11/AR20100…; is on the market, will pharmacists dispense it? <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2010/09/will_pharmacists_fill_… may not</a>, according to the Washington Post’s The Checkup health blog.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The surgeons at Anaheim Hills Surgery Center had to be sweating.</p> <p>The Joint Commission, one of the most powerful arbiters of whether a health center is deemed worthy of federal funding, showed up at the surgery center’s doorstep in April 2008 to review its records, its practices and its sta

<p>Here’s what we’re reading today:</p> <p><strong>Kid Insurance:</strong> HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius may have called on states to get cracking on insuring more poor kids, but the states are responding: with what money? American Medical News <a href="http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/09/20/gvl10920.htm">has the story</a>.</p>

<p>Earlier this month, <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/blogs/junk-food-and-hospitals">James Barone asked why hospitals serve vending machine snacks and unhealthy food</a>. An event in Los Angeles yesterday raised other basic questions about hospitals: Can a shift in thinking about hospital design actually improve health?</p>

<p>Here’s what we’re reading and listening to today:</p> <p><strong>Achoo:</strong> A small but intriguing new study suggests that a common cold virus is linked to childhood obesity. In San Diego, KPBS’ <a href="../../users/kennyg">Kenny Goldberg</a> has <a href="http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/sep/20/ucsd-study-suggest-link-between-co… story</a>.</p>

<p>Someone who runs a red light and is caught on one of those video cameras might expect their insurance premiums to rise.</p> <p>Likewise, a doctor who has been disciplined by the state medical board or sued repeatedly might expect his malpractice insurance company to take note and adjust accordingly. You take risks. Your insurance company will make you pay more to cover those risks.</p>

<p>Amy Wallace recently wrote about the minefield surrounding her reporting on vaccines for <em>ReportingonHealth</em>. Two months after her November 2009 <em>Wired</em> cover story "An Epidemic of Fear: One Man's Battle Against the Anti-vaccine Movement" was published, she was sued. Though the laws

<p>Keep up with the best reading on the web with the <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/taxonomy/term/10573/feed"><em>Daily Briefing</em> via RSS</a>. Here are today's picks:</p> <p><strong>Beat It:</strong> Apologies for the corny King of Pop reference, but I had no choice. <em>PLoS Medicine</em> published a study this week that demonstrates <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.10003… value of being a specialized health reporter</a>.</p>

<p>Approaching the half-way mark in Antidote’s tour of state medical boards, I thought I had seen every conceivable public records sin. Unnecessarily clunky websites. Redacted records. Demands for written requests.</p> <p>The <a href="http://dsitspe01.its.state.ms.us/msbml/mlb.nsf">Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure</a> adds a new offense against its citizenry: greed.</p>