News in brief - Jan. 26, 2004

Drug reimportation fight continues - For-profit Medicare plans don't skimp more on expensive procedures - State fights court's rejection of N.H. parental notification law

Drug reimportation fight continues

A growing number of cities and states have announced intentions to pursue programs that would allow their residents to buy less-expensive prescription drugs from Canada. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Mark McClellan, MD, has recently said the agency may take legal actions against these programs because of safety concerns.

Meanwhile, under pressure from federal lawmakers, major credit card companies, as well as FedEx and UPS, have agreed to start weeding out companies and distributors that deal in prescription drugs illegally imported from other countries.

For-profit Medicare plans don't skimp more on expensive procedures

A study investigating whether for-profit Medicare managed care plans deny high-cost procedures more often than nonprofit plans found the opposite. In the Jan. 8 New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health said patients enrolled in for-profit plans were much more likely to receive two of 12 expensive procedures examined and were just as likely as those in nonprofit plans to get the remaining 10.

"We found no evidence that enrollees in for-profit health plans were less likely to receive such procedures," the study's authors said. This was true for both "low-discretion" procedures and for "high-discretion" procedures, such as hysterectomies.

State fights court's rejection of N.H. parental notification law

New Hampshire is appealing a federal court's decision to strike down a parental notification law that was originally set to take effect Jan. 1. The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire said the law, which requires minors to notify parents 48 hours before getting an abortion or to get permission from a judge, is unconstitutional.

Planned Parenthood and other groups opposed to the law argue that it does not include adequate exceptions for cases in which the pregnancy endangers the minor's health. The state argues that the law has enough exceptions to make it constitutional.