Good news for S-CHIP

Last week, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) got a shot in the arm from a General Accounting Office legal opinion. Some states have tried to expand health insurance coverage to children of middle-income families, only to be blocked by presidential veto. The GAO opinion (PDF here) holds that the Administration's policy is a sea change from previous interpretations of applicable law, and that as such it would require Congressional authorization. You can read more here. Given current economic conditions, it can only be a good thing to make sure that kids' health is taken care of as families struggle to make ends meet.

Should Americans be allowed to buy and sell transplant organs?

Another story on organ transplantation ethics, this time from a policy perspective. The libertarian Cato Institute recently hosted a policy summit on the issue of payment for transplant organs. While current US policy prohibits payment for human organs for transplant, based on concerns that poor and vulnerable people would likely be exploited by those who could afford "replacement parts," some argue that it's wrong and unduly paternalistic to stop people from selling their organs. Layer in the substantial shortfall in donor organs and the number of people who die waiting for a suitable transplant organ to become available, and you've got a complicated policy question.

Featured in the panel discussion are (from the Cato Institute website): Arthur Matas, Professor of Surgery; Director, Kidney Transplant Program, University of Minnesota, Immediate Past President, American Society of Transplant Surgeons; Francis Delmonico, Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Medical Director, The Transplantation Society; World Health Organization; Benjamin Hippen, Transplant Nephrologist, Carolinas Medical Center, At-Large Member of the United Network for Organ Sharing Ethics Committee; and Samuel Crowe, Senior Policy Analyst, The President's Council on Bioethics. You can check out the podcast here.

Photo credit: Aldenbrooke's Hospital Transplant Unit, NHS

Policy briefing: requiring individual health insurance

The health care problem is not only an ethical issue (many people, myself included, believe that Americans should not go without needed health care because they're poor) but also, increasingly, a major factor in the overall economic picture. (This isn't a new problem--check out the news on GM, for example--but one that is becoming ever more pressing for a variety of reasons.)

You've likely heard about plans -- some in place (as in Massachusetts), some proposed (like the one just rejected this week in California) -- to require that individuals purchase health insurance. It being an election year, we're likely to start hearing more, soon, about the candidates' plans for fixing the health care "system." Such individual-mandate approaches may be part of that picture.

Just in time, here's a chance to learn more: you can tune in to a live webcast today at 1:30 ET, sponsored by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. It should be an informative session, featuring a panel of well-known experts in health policy and finance.

If you can't tune in today (sorry for the short notice!), the archived webcast will be available online afterward.