The News

reuters.com — Americans who go without health insurance for any part of 2008 will spend $30 billion out of pocket for health care and they will get $56 billion worth of free care, according to a new report. Government programs pay for about three-quarters, or roughly $43 billion, of the bills for these uninsured people, Jack Hadley of George Mason University in Virginia and a team at the Urban Institute reported. "The uninsured receive a lot less care than the insured, and they pay a greater percentage of it out of pocket. Contrary to popular myth, they are not all free riders," Hadley said.

hosted.ap.org — About 3.4 million older and disabled people hit a gap, known as the doughnut hole, in their Medicare drug coverage in 2007. When that happened, they had to pay the entire costs of their medicine until they spent $3,850 out of pocket. Then, insurance coverage would kick in again. About 15 percent of those hitting the coverage gap stopped their treatment regimen. The drug benefit, which began in 2006, has come in under budget. Most participants report they are satisfied with the program. But many lawmakers and health analysts say improvements could be made.

hosted.ap.org — The Bush administration is backing down from a threat to penalize states enrolling middle-class children in a health program intended for the poor. The administration unveiled several new requirements last year for states that use a state-federal health program to cover children in families with incomes above 250 percent of the federal poverty level. States were directed to make the changes in their State Children's Health Insurance Program or potentially face financial penalties. Democratic lawmakers criticized the new guidelines as impossible to meet. They said the final result would be that more children would go without health coverage as states rein in their programs.

hosted.ap.org — The typical Medicare beneficiary can expect to see about a $3 increase in their monthly premiums for prescription drug coverage in 2009, federal officials said. Officials made the projection based on bids from private insurers that get the premiums along with a federal subsidy to administer the benefit. The increase of 12 percent will up the monthly premium to $28 for standard drug coverage. Medicare officials cited several factors in the increase. Primarily, people are using more prescriptions, plus the costs of many of those drugs are going up.

usatoday.com — Drug companies are quietly pushing through price hikes of 100 percent — or even more than 1,000 percent — for a very small but growing number of prescription drugs, helping to drive up costs for insurers, patients and government programs. The number of brand-name drugs with increases of 100 percent or more could double this year from four years ago, researchers from the University of Minnesota say. Many of the drugs are older products that treat fairly rare, but often serious or even life-threatening, conditions. "This does drive up the price of health care," says Alan Goldbloom, president of Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. "Hospitals are either eating the cost or passing it along to insurers, so you and I are paying it in increased premiums."

nytimes.com — The United States has significantly underreported the number of new H.I.V. infections occurring nationally each year, with a study released showing that the annual infection rate is 40 percent higher than previously estimated. The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 56,300 people became newly infected with H.I.V in 2006, compared with the 40,000 figure the agency has cited as the recent annual incidence of the disease. The findings confirm that H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, has its greatest effect among gay and bisexual men of all races (53 percent of all new infections) and among African-American men and women.