Karen Cyphers - page 59

Congressman Dennis Ross, in an op-ed for Roll Cal, defends the conservative cred of the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) which would close the loophole online businesses can exploit in avoiding to collect state sales and creating an unfair “government-sanctioned pricing advantage of up to 10 percent” over brick-and-mortar businesses. Ross’s main point: that critics of “e-fairness” are misguided in pegging the MFA as a tax increase; and that the Act is, in fact, “built on conservative principles like a free market,…

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Unexpectedly sharp words were exchanged over a hearing of Lizbeth Benacquisto’s “Cancer Treatment Fairness Act” in response to opposition on the bill from the Florida Association of Health Plans. Benacquisto’s SB 422 requires insurers to provide coverage for oral cancer drugs equitably to coverage for intravenously administered or injected drugs, and prohibits insurers from raising costs on IV drugs to comply with the bill. Although historically, intravenous methods are most common for administering chemotherapy, at least one quarter of drugs…

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St. Johns and Martin County are Florida’s healthiest counties, and Putnam, Union and Hamilton the least, based on a report just released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The 2013 County Health Rankings grade each Florida county on a variety of health and environmental factors including mortality and morbidity data, health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors, and data on the physical environment. Health behaviors include tobacco use, alcohol use, sexual…

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Top Florida fundraisers John Morgan and Ben Pollara have signed on to lead People United for Medical Marijuana in a high-profile 2014 constitutional ballot campaign for the legalization of medical marijuana — an endeavor which may be about more than grass on Election Day. Previewed earlier this week in Sunburn, via Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald, Morgan said he’s going to lead the initiative for personal reasons: His father had struggled with cancer and emphysema, and only marijuana helped…

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To continue Friday’s news on federal interest in Florida’s alternative plan for expanding health care coverage sans Medicaid, Senator Joe Negron’s plan, now called “Healthy Florida” will have a hearing Thursday in the Senate Appropriations Committee at 2:00 pm. Health care committees in both chambers recently voted along party lines to reject the expansion of Medicaid that would make Florida eligible for approximately $51 million in federal funds over ten years.  According to Negron, as reported by Health News Florida, Healthy…

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Today, the National Alzheimer’s Association released its 2013 Facts and Figures, showing the magnitude and growth of this disease nationally and in Florida, and detailing the extensive costs that this disease levies on federal and state health care systems, and on families. Based on this report: About 5 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia, and up to 16 million will have the disease by 2050. Florida is second only to California in the number of residents with…

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Sally Bradshaw, Florida State Board of Education Member and veteran Republican strategist, was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal regarding the newly released Republican National Committee ‘autopsy’ report that sharply criticized the GOP after the 2012 election, sharing her perspective as one of the five authors of this report.  The RNC’s Growth and Opportunity Project was undertaken to give the party engine a top-to-bottom tune-up. Bradshaw said the autopsy involved about 90 days and input from over 50,000 people including individuals…

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