Thursday, April 24, 2003

Studies: Workforce Challenges Cut Across Human Service Program
Article in Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly at Medscape on a comprehensive study that examined the challenges facing front-line human service workers released last month by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. [Viewing resources requires registration, which is free]. Please note that the full report, The Unsolved Challenges of System Reform: The Condition of the Frontline Human Services Workforce, is available in Adobe Acrobat format from the Human Services Workforce Initiative section of the Annie E. Casey Foundation web site.  
  

Options for Financing Health Coverage Expansion 
The fourth paper (in Adobe Acrobat format) in the "Issues in Coverage Expansion Design Series" from the Economic and Social Research Institute "discusses issues to be considered when policymakers decide how to finance new coverage programs, including the differences between budgetary and social costs, criteria for choosing a financing source, and various sources for funding."  
  

Drug Makers Expand Their Medicaid Role
This New York Times article doesn't specifically reference mental health treatment, yet it identifies an important trend in the role of pharmaceutical companies in the American health care system - "A growing number of pharmaceutical companies are offering to take on prominent public health roles in helping to care for the sickest poor patients in some states. Under the agreements, the drug companies create guidelines for treating Medicaid patients with chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes. ....The drug companies say the programs save taxpayers millions of dollars by keeping Medicaid patients out of the hospital. But critics of the programs say the drug companies are sponsoring them to persuade state governments to drop efforts to demand lower drug prices." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free].