A new report from the American Cancer Society finds substantial evidence that lack of adequate health insurance coverage is associated with less access to care and poorer outcomes for cancer patients. The report finds the uninsured are less likely to receive recommended cancer screening tests, are more likely to be diagnosed with later stage disease, and have lower survival rates than those with private insurance for several cancers. [click link for full article]

It is impossible under the current Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services reporting process to determine whether a 2006 restructuring of the state’s Medicaid program saved money, according to the state auditor’s office, the AP/Louisville Courier-Journal reports (AP/Louisville Courier-Journal, 12/17). [click link for full article]

The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development recently developed a policy that provides a framework for addressing HIV/AIDS in the workplace, Health Minister Hajiya Saudatu Usman Bungudu announced over the weekend, Nigeria’s Daily Trust reports. [click link for full article]

A new report by a major US cancer charity has found that uninsured Americans are less likely to survive cancer, less likely to be screened for it, and more likely to have an advanced stage of the disease once they are diagnosed, compared with Americans on health insurance. [click link for full article]

The Senate on Tuesday by voice vote approved a “bare-bones” Medicare bill (S 2499) that would delay for six months a 10% physician fee cut and would extend SCHIP through March 2009, CQ Today reports. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the House will take up the measure on Wednesday.The legislation would increase Medicare physician fees by 0. [click link for full article]

A team of investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Biomicroelectromechanical Systems (BioMEMS) Resource Center and the MGH Cancer Center has developed a microchip-based device that can isolate, enumerate and analyze circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from a blood sample. CTCs are viable cells from solid tumors carried in the bloodstream at a level of one in a billion cell. [click link for full article]

HHS is seeking to limit the scope of a judge’s decision last week to temporarily halt Medicaid from implementing a new formula for drug reimbursements to pharmacies so that it does not alter the way drug makers calculate rebates to state Medicaid programs, Dow Jones reports (Wisenberg Brin, Dow Jones, 12/18). U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C. [click link for full article]

People struggling to survive violence, forced displacement, and disease in the Central African Republic (CAR), Somalia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere often went underreported in the news this year and much of the past decade, according to the 10th annual list of the “Top Ten” Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories, released by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). [click link for full article]

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have identified a new molecular pathway that appears to be involved in urinary protein loss (proteinuria). This early-stage kidney disease affects 100 million people around the world and is caused by a breakdown in the kidney’s filtering structures. Blocking this pathway could be a treatment for the condition and might significantly slow the process of kidney failure. [click link for full article]

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed to extend Medicare coverage for continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices to include beneficiaries who have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) as a result of a Type II, III, or IV home sleep test (HST). OSA is a condition in which periods of temporary suspension in breathing (apnea) occur during sleep. [click link for full article]