Recent Arizona Health News
For those people thinking about moving to Arizona or for the residents that already live there, there are a few health-related news stories that you may want to know about.
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Healthcare Group of Arizona Seeking State Funding
Healthcare Group of Arizona has requested eight million dollars in state funds to enable it to continue providing health and medical coverage for 25,000 Arizona residents that it serves. The group specializes in health insurance plans for self-employed state residents or for employees who work for a company with fewer than five employees.
Healthcare Group’s program for self-employed individuals seems to attract customers who have specialized medical conditions and who can’t get coverage under any other company’s plans. Apparently, the program is facing a $23 million deficit because of changes in program subsidies and regulation changes, which made it difficult for the plan to compete with other health insurers. The plan may not be able to continue serving its customers if this petition for funds goes unheeded.
Asthma in Children Leads to Increase in Health Care Needs
Dr. Fernando Martinez, a pediatrician with the Arizona Respiratory Center, worries that the increasing cases of asthma in children are reaching epidemic levels in every state in the country, including Arizona. One in ten children now requires some level of health care for this condition which is far above the incidence rate of the disease from even just ten years ago.
Part of the reason for this rise is undoubtedly environmental in nature, though at the moment this has proven hard to quantify. There seem to be no other collaborative reasons for this sharp rise in incidences of asthma over the past decade. With genetic research techniques, Dr. Martinez and his team of researchers have made some promising advances in the diagnosis and treatment of this disease in children. By pinpointing the specific genes, which are affected by the particular environmental factors, the team hopes to help find a vaccine to help prevent the disease from occurring at all.
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