Pepsi’s partner in Japan is marketing a new “Pepsi Special” drink abroad that claims to suppress the absorption of fat with a dietary fiber named dextrin. Although the company claims that Pepsi Special could be the first “healthy” soda — and the product has even qualified for a government-designated label in Japan that identifies it as a nutrition-related product — U.S. health experts warn that it’s probably too good to be true.

The long-term effects haven’t been studied, but some Japanese scientists warn that consuming high levels of dextrin can cause stomach pain and bloating in the short term. And even aside from the supplement’s potentially negative effects, Time reports that Pepsi Special is unlikely to make it past the Food and Drug Administration’s standards if Pepsi were to attempt to market it in the United States:

Dr. Walter Willett, chair of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, added in an email statement: “Unless Pepsi can provide data from controlled studies in humans to the contrary, their claim should be regarded as bogus and deceptive.”

In fact, Pepsi may face challenges if it decides to bring Pepsi Special to the United States, since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tends to frown on such potentially suspect nutrient-boosting of essentially unhealthy products in an attempt to make them healthier. [...]

“You shouldn’t add good things to bad things because that could encourage people to eat something that isn’t healthy for them,” said Michael Jacobson, Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a food safety and nutrition consumer advocacy group.

The FDA already has its hands full attempting to regulate soft drinks on the American market. Some lawmakers are pressuring the agency to reconsider the way it currently regulates energy drinks, after recent reports have suggested a potential link between energy drinks and American deaths. Energy drink companies often don’t disclose the actual amount of caffeine their products contain, and allowing Pepsi to market its new soda as a “nutrition supplement” in the U.S. could introduce another area where the FDA needs to step in to regulate advertisement standards.

And recent research has conclusively linked sugary drinks to America’s obesity epidemic — suggesting that Pepsi’s misleading claim that it has created a “healthy” soda could actually undercut public health initiatives to limit excessive soda drinking, like New York City’s ban on the sale of sugary drinks over 16 ounces. But the companies that market soft drinks are often simply concerned about their bottom lines. Members of the soda industry, like Pepsi’s company, filed a lawsuit in September to attempt to block New York City’s new soda regulations from taking effect.

Americans who use marijuana for medical purposes in states that permit it already face the uncertainties — such as DEA crackdowns and uneven drug law enforcement — that accompany their medication’s federally prohibited status. But patients in these states also bear the full weight of their medicine’s costs, which must be paid entirely out-of-pocket since health insurers have refused to go anywhere near coverage for medical marijuana prescriptions.

Since the federal government designates marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance with no legitimate medical use, insurers and employer-based health plans stay away from cannabis — even though it is now legal for medicinal purposes in 18 states and the District of Columbia, and completely legal in Washington and Colorado. As Kaiser Health News reports, this perpetuates a system in which patients with legitimate medical need of the drug may have to spend up to hundreds of dollars a month to fill their prescriptions:

Health insurance rarely if ever covers [marijuana] use; some patients spend hundreds of dollars a month or more on the drug. The situation may not change anytime soon, some experts say. [...]

A typical patient might purchase an eighth of an ounce — the equivalent of about three joints — from a dispensary at a cost of $20 to $60, says Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access. But patients’ needs vary widely.

“Some people only need a few hits at a time to experience a therapeutic effect,” he says. “Others need to smoke several marijuana cigarettes a day or ingest it with food, which takes considerably more.”

With many other medications, particularly those that are prescribed to a patient for long-term use, health insurance helps bring prescription costs down to $5-$10 per refill — a far cry from the range of prices paid by medical marijuana users. The federal government isn’t yet buying the argument that marijuana can have legitimate medical uses — despite some studies that have suggested otherwise — and insurers are following suit. But in the states where medical marijuana has been legalized, voters have electorally ratified their belief that cannabis can be a boost to patient health, particularly for Americans undergoing chemotherapy and other painful procedures.

State legislators in Michigan held a hearing on Tuesday to consider House Bills 5684 and 5685, which would allow taxpayers to receive tax relief for unborn fetuses past 12 weeks’ gestation. The proposed legislation is an odd push for Michigan Republicans, partly because Progress Michigan notes the state slashed tax credits for children last year — meaning that although parents living in Michigan do not qualify for additional tax breaks to offset the cost of caring for their own children, they could soon be able to claim a tax credit for an unborn fetus.

Progress Michigan’s executive director points out that the proposed legislation is a dangerous step toward endowing fetuses with the same rights as human beings while disregarding the real economic needs of Michigan’s children, 341,000 of whom currently live in high-poverty areas:

“It’s clear Lansing Republicans have the wrong priorities by wasting time on these extreme bills,” said Zack Pohl, Executive Director of Progress Michigan. “This is really a backdoor way of passing extreme personhood legislation, which has been rejected by voters in states across the country. Even worse, this would create a special new tax credit for unborn fetuses, after Lansing Republicans eliminated the tax credit for living, breathing children last year. It’s time for our elected leaders to get their priorities straight and start working together to create good jobs and improve education.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures believes this type of legislation could represent the first of its kind, although they acknowledged that the issue of states providing tax credits for fetuses has not been widely studied.

The nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency has estimated that allowing Michigan residents to claim a tax credit for unborn fetuses would cost the state between $5 million and $10 million annually in lost tax revenue.

(HT: Alison C)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a slew of important new Obamacare rules and regulations today, continuing a widely expected post-election effort to successfully implement President Obama’s landmark health care reform law by 2014.

In a call with reporters, CMS and HHS outlined the new proposed rules, which instruct insurers, providers, and governmental institutions on how they must proceed in implementing Obamacare measures — ranging from a ban on discriminating against Americans with pre-existing medical conditions to public wellness initiatives such as coverage for employees’ gym use. Here are the three most important things you need to know about the new rules:

1) Insurers will be prohibited from discriminating against Americans with pre-existing conditions. Long considered one of the health insurance industry’s most odious practices, refusing to extend coverage to Americans suffering from a pre-existing medical condition will soon be a thing of the past. The first of CMS’s proposed rules mandates that insurance companies will need to base their premium rates solely on an individual’s age, family size, geography, and history of tobacco use — preventing discrimination against Americans for any other reason, such as their gender or their chronic illnesses. The rule will also set strict limits on how much insurers can vary the premiums they charge Americans based on these factors, marking an end to gender rating practices that charged women more than men for the same medical services. This will be a boon to the over 120 million Americans who suffer from a pre-existing condition in one form or another.

2) State exchanges will establish a standard of “essential health benefits” that every plan will be required to cover. Obamacare will require the plans offered under state-wide health insurance exchanges in 2014 to clear federal benchmarks across ten “essential health benefit” categories, including access to maternal care, mental health services, preventative health care, and prescription drug coverage. These assured benefits — which are supposed to reflect the level of coverage offered by a typical employer-sponsored plan — will help correct for spotty coverage that does not actually meet Americans’ medical needs. CMS’s proposed rule requires state exchanges to offer to the same level of coverage as a statewide benchmark health plan of the state’s choosing. If a state’s chosen benchmark plan does not cover all of Obamacare’s required benefit categories — for instance, by not offering mental health services — then the federal government will intervene and supplement that plan so that it does meet the health law’s coverage requirements. The rule also creates standards for prescription drug coverage so that such coverage actually meets Americans’ health care needs and prohibits health plans from designing their benefits in a way that discriminates against certain groups of Americans.

3) Wellness programs will help promote public health and curb health care costs. The last of the three proposed rules is joint guidance from HHS, the Treasury, and the Department of Labor regarding sponsorship of workplace wellness programs. Obamacare encourages preventative health initiatives and a transition from “sick care” to actual “health care” in an effort to both improve Americans’ quality of life and lower national health spending. Under the proposed rule, employers are encouraged to continue both participatory and health-contingent wellness programs — such as subsidizing the cost of employees’ fitness center memberships or enrolling employees in tobacco-cessation programs — in exchange for federal rewards.

These rules will give states more clarity as they move forward in implementing the Affordable Care Act. Although many Obamacare details must still be worked out — particularly regarding the statewide insurance exchanges — the reform law has made enormous strides in the last year that will result in a fairer, more accessible, and more affordable American health care system that is a marked improvement over the pre-Obamacare era. “It’s important to remember what this market looked like back in 2009… We were definitely headed in the wrong direction,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on the conference call.

An owner of 40 Denny’s restaurants declared last week that he planned to add a five percent “Obamacare surcharge” to customers’ bills, earning him a rebuke from the chain’s CEO.

John Miller, who runs the Denny’s corporation, rushed to clean up the mess left by franchisee John Metz, whose comments on Fox News Thursday set off a firestorm. Miller made it clear that he didn’t agree with Metz’s comments and it was not the company’s policy.

The Huffington Post has more:

Denny’s chief executive John Miller privately reached out to Metz to express his “disappointment” with the Florida franchisee’s controversial statements about Obamacare, which sparked a wave of backlash for the national restaurant chain over the past few days. [...]

“We recognize his right to speak on issues, but registered our disappointment that his comments have been interpreted as the company’s position,” Miller said in an email to The Huffington Post.

Metz also released a statement following their conversation expressing remorse for his comments. “We regret that the statements we made may have been interpreted as representative of the Denny’s brand or of other franchisees, which they are not,” Metz said. “Our stores do not have a 5 percent surcharge.”

The backlash has spread to other Denny’s franchises as well. An owner of seven locations in Florida said that they nearly unplugged the phones after a deluge of angry callers to the restaurants.

The experts on the U.S. Preventative Task Force, a government-backed panel of scientists and medical professionals, are now recommending that every American between the ages of 15 and 65 be tested for HIV. Since the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover the preventative services that are recommended by the task force, regular HIV testing will now be covered under Obamacare as a routine part of a check-up.

Dr. Carlos Del Rio, an expert in AIDS research in Atlanta, told ABC News that the task force’s announcement is “very exciting” because it will help ensure that her patients are routinely screened for HIV, just as they are already tested for their blood pressure or cholesterol levels:

“People are terrible at knowing their own risk,” said Del Rio, adding that people may be unaware of the HIV status of their sexual partners. “And doctors are terrible at asking them about risk. It can be difficult to discuss sex and drugs with our patients.”

The task force recommendations are used by Medicare and other insurance companies to determine what laboratory tests should be covered. Other important task force recommendations included screening for breast and colon cancer, as well as high cholesterol.

“I don’t have to ask my patients if they eat hamburgers before ordering a cholesterol test,” said Del Rio. “Now I can do a routine HIV test when patients come to clinic.”

The task force first indicated they were considering updating their recommendations on HIV testing in August. Their previous guidelines on HIV screening — which hadn’t been changed since 2005 — left the decision to test for HIV up to each individual doctor, and only strongly recommended testing for the adults who were considered to be at “high risk” for contracting the virus after having multiple sexual partners. But according to researchers, since 20 percent of HIV-positive Americans are currently unaware they have the virus, regular screening could help identify more people who could benefit from early treatment.

Although gains in HIV treatment still remain somewhat stratified by race and class, Obamacare does represent an important step forward for HIV-positive individuals. Guaranteed coverage for HIV testing isn’t the only way that the health reform law will help combat the virus; Obamacare also increases resources for HIV research and prevention, helps ensure that the drugs for HIV treatment are more affordable, and prevents insurance companies from discriminating against Americans simply based on their HIV status.

Although President Obama’s re-election ensures his landmark health reform will continue to be implemented across the country — and even House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has finally conceded that Obamacare is “the law of the land” — some right-wing groups simply refuse to give up the fight against the Affordable Care Act. Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed lobbying group, is going after its own, targeting long-standing allies like Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and other state lawmakers for agreeing that Obamacare is here to stay.

Even though Scott ran his own anti-Obamacare group, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, to pressure Democrats to oppose the Affordable Care Act, his recent admission that Obama’s re-election cements the health law in place is a reality that Americans for Prosperity would rather not confront. According to the group’s Florida director, “Florida should not agree to be the de-facto administrator of the federal government’s rules, regulations and mandates. In light of the recent election, it is clearly now up to the states to get our fiscal house in order. Succumbing to Washington largesse and regulation is the wrong path for Florida.”

In fact, the American public agrees with the very statement that Americans for Prosperity is so quick to attack. Public support for repealing Obamacare plunged to an all-time low after the election results came in, and the majority of Americans believe that lawmakers now need to work within the existing structure of the health reform law. Americans also report broad support for the health reform law’s major provisions, even though many of them remain unsure about the details of what the law contains since Obamacare is not yet fully in effect.

But Americans for Prosperity may be slow to come around to Obamacare because they have already poured so much money into their failed effort to elect Republicans and repeal the law. A ThinkProgress analysis of the Kantar Media Group’s CMAG data reveals that Americans for Prosperity spent over $10 million during the 2012 campaign cycle on ads attacking Obamacare and the candidates who supported it. They dropped over $5 million on just one anti-Obamacare ad spot, falsely describing the health law as “one of the largest tax increases in history,” even though the Affordable Care Act actually represents a massive tax cut for the middle class.