Some public health officials argue that the image associated with global warming shouldn’t be a polar bear surrounded by melting ice caps, but rather a child suffering from heat exhaustion.

Some social scientists believe that the issue of global warming could resonate with a larger segment of the general population if it is framed in terms of public health rather than the environment. The most obvious consequences of global warming that pose a threat to public health are deadly heat waves, such as the record-shattering temperatures this past summer that resulted in over 50 deaths. But epidemiologist George Luber told NPR that the Centers for Disease Control is focused on combating a broader set of climate-related issues that could pose a threat to Americans’ health:

Today, Luber’s job at the CDC is to deal with health issues related to climate change. And heat waves are just part of his portfolio.

Hot air causes more smog, which in turn causes more asthma. Also high on his list are deadly storms, which are likely to become more powerful as the world warms. Infectious diseases can also increase their ranges as the climate changes.

“This is a new topic for public health,” Luber says. “This is emerging largely as a result that the scientific evidence around climate change has evolved to the point that public health feels confident engaging the science; that this is a credible threat.”

Because climate change has become so politically contentious — with prominent elected officials, including Paul Ryan, continuing to doubt the scientific evidence behind it — health officials may be better messengers to communicate the disastrous effects of global warming because Americans consider them to be a neutral source. Researchers at American University have also found that framing global warming as a public health issue is the “most emotionally compelling” because it helps people see the issue as more personally relevant.

As global temperatures keep climbing — just today, the U.S. National Climate Data Center reported that 2012 has been the warmest year on record so far, and the past 15 months have all reached record-breaking temperatures — public health officials may not have a hard time making their case.

Over 100 national, state, and local faith leaders are imploring Republican governors to have the “wisdom and integrity” to expand their states’ Medicaid programs to cover an estimated 17 million low-income Americans who cannot currently afford health insurance. A joint statement issued by the religious leaders calls on lawmakers to accept the Medicaid expansion under Obama’s health reform law because “depriving struggling families of healthcare is wholly incompatible with the teachings of our faiths and the ideals of our nation.”

In a press call releasing the faith leaders’ statement, Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of the Catholic social justice group NETWORK, said governors should embrace extending Medicaid coverage to uninsured Americans as a pro-life policy:

I call on all governors to expand Medicaid coverage in order to save thousands of lives. My strong support of Medicaid expansion comes out of my pro-life stance because it is the right and moral thing to do.

Campbell — who headed up the Nuns On A Bus tour this summer to raise awareness about the House Republican budget’s devastating effects on the poor — said that, as a person of faith, she believes it is wrong for a nation to fail to take the necessary steps to care for its citizens.

The religious leaders who added their names to the statement join the 43 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who have also called on GOP governors to “refuse to play politics with people’s health” and agree to expand the Medicaid programs in their states. Nevertheless, Republican governors in states including Texas, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina have pledged to reject the Medicaid expansion.

NBC touts its coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games, which drew a total of 219 million viewers, as “the most-watched television event in U.S. history.” However, the same cannot be said for network’s treatment of the Paralympic Games.

Though the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games drew 7.7 million viewers last night, NBC’s coverage of the games does not begin until September 16 and will consist of just five and half hours of highlights. In contrast, the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 aired 400 hours of Paralympic coverage, Australia’s ABC aired more than 100. Viewers in Japan watched nightly one-hour highlights during the Paralympics.

The president of the International Paralympic Committee, Sir Philip Craven, told BBC his group will examine their potential broadcasting partners’ values more closely after NBC failed to broadcast any live coverage of the games:

CRAVEN: We’ll examine their values as they will examine ours. If the values fit, we’ve got a chance. If they don’t we’ll go somewhere else. [...] The people of the USA, for example, particularly the parents and families of the athletes, they are all ready for Paralympic sport.

NBC said that this year’s five and a half hours of Paralympics coverage is an improvement of its coverage of the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, which consisted of “a single 90-minute highlights package.” For some Paralympics advocates, however, that improvement doesn’t go nearly far enough.

– Greg Noth

This weekend on Meet the Press, Romney said “there are a number of things I like” about President Obama’s health care reform law, including the popular provision on pre-exisiting conditions. Romney’s campaign, however, began walking back his statements as soon as they left his mouth.

After the NBC interview aired, a Romney aide was quick to clarify Romney was “not proposing a federal mandate to require insurance plans to offer [the] particular features” that he suggested he supported. When further pressed on Romney’s stated support for preventing discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions, a campaign aide explained, “Governor Romney will ensure that discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage is prohibited.”

The aide pointed to earlier statements from Romney on the subject, explaining that Romney’s current position is exactly what he expressed at a Florida rally this summer:

ROMNEY: So let’s say someone has been continuously insured and they develop a serious condition. And let’s say they lose their jobs or they change jobs or they move and go to a different place, I don’t want them to be denied insurance because they have some pre-existing conditions. So we’re going to have to make sure that the law that we replace Obamacare with, ensures that people who have a pre-existing condition, who have been insured in the past, are able to get insurance in the future so they don’t have to worry about that condition keeping them from getting the kind of health care they deserve.

Under the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the federal government already prevents insurers from denying coverage to the “continuously insured” group that Romney mentions, although HIPAA has failed to effectively regulate the cost and content of the insurance coverage that insurers extend to those with pre-existing conditions. The Romney campaign is insistent on clarifying the fact that, rather than supporting health care reform, Romney’s stance on pre-existing conditions reinforces the status quo.

The key part of the Obamacare provision is the protection for millions of previously uninsured Americans who are denied insurance coverage because of their pre-existing conditions. Romney’s campaign wants to make it clear that Romney rejects this policy in favor of denying coverage to the 89 million Americans who haven’t been lucky enough to have continuous coverage.

Thanks to the popular Obamacare provision that extends health insurance coverage to millions of young adults by allowing them to stay on their parents’ insurance until 26 years of age, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control estimates the number of uninsured young people dropped by one-sixth between 2010 and 2011. This represents the largest annual decline for any age group since the CDC first began collecting data on insurance rates in 1997.

According to the National Health Interview Survey, 33.9 percent of people between the ages of 19 and 25 lacked health insurance in 2010. The following year, after the Obamacare provision had taken effect, that number dropped to 27.9 percent. By the CDC’s estimates, that means 1.6 million young people gained coverage between 2010 and 2011, and health policy analysts agree the dramatic drop in uninsured young adults during that time span was due to the health reform law:

The estimates are drawn from a federal survey of about 35,000 households. It did not ask how the newly insured obtained coverage, but the study’s author, Matthew Broaddus, a research analyst at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the increased coverage for young people was almost certainly due to a provision in the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act that allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance policies until their 26th birthday.

Joseph Antos, a health care policy expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agreed that the provision of the new law was the only plausible explanation for the increase. He pointed out that young people have been among the hardest hit in the recession and would otherwise have been expected to be less likely to be insured. “Nothing else went well for this age group,” he said.

Mitt Romney — who has pledged to repeal Obamacare if he wins in November — said yesterday that the provision extending coverage young adults is one of the “number of things” he likes about Obama’s health reform. A long list of other Republican lawmakers have also suggested they would support keeping the provision in place.