Monday, January 31, 2005

Healthcare Overhaul Is Quietly Underway LA Times story - "Emboldened by their success at the polls, the Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress believe they have a new opportunity to move the nation away from the system of employer-provided health insurance that has covered most working Americans for the last half-century. In its place, they want to erect a system in which workers — instead of looking to employers for health insurance — would take personal responsibility for protecting themselves and their families: They would buy high-deductible 'catastrophic' insurance policies to cover major medical needs, then pay routine costs with money set aside in tax-sheltered health savings accounts. Elements of that approach have been on the conservative agenda for years, but what has suddenly put it on the fast track is GOP confidence that the political balance of power has changed." [Viewing Los Angeles Times stories requires registration, which is free].  
  

Young Adults Often Reject Depression Diagnosis WebMD story - "...one out of every four people in the U.S. has experienced depression. That can lead to substance abuse, problems at work and in relationships, and a host of other woes. But only 20% of depressed young adults get high-quality treatment, say Benjamin Van Voorhees, MD, MPH, and colleagues. To find out why, they conducted an Internet survey of nearly 11,000 people aged 16 to 29. All participants showed signs of depression in an online screening test. The study posed a provocative question -- could participants accept a depression diagnosis from their doctor? For 26%, the answer was no."  
  

Developing evaluation capacity in community mental health programs (Canada) Item in CMHA/Ontario's Mental Health Notes - "According to an article published in Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal that describes the results of as Ontario initiative to help community mental health agencies conduct program evaluation, the field is interested in evaluation but faces the challenge of limited resources and a limited infrastructure. ... Many programs said that the greatest challenges to evaluating their services was a lack of infrastructure such as human resources, time, computer hardware and software and funding specifically for evaluation. "