Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States this week expanded cooperation with India on labor and employment issues with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that was hailed by both as a tool to enhance strong bonds between the two democracies.

Calling the MoU “an essential part of our bilateral relationship,” Mark Toner, the State Department spokesman, told journalists on Friday, “When you look at our relationship and the strategic dialogue that we have with India, there’s many baskets of issues that fall under that rubric, and certainly labor laws are one of those.”

Earlier on Thursday, Mallikarjun Kharge, visiting Indian minister for labor and employment, and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis inked a bilateral MoU for cooperation in the areas of skill development, youth employment, occupational safety and health and mines safety and health.

Kharge emphasized that, “the road map laid down in the Memorandum of Understanding will facilitate very close cooperation and interaction between our two countries and bring about improvements in the life of workers and their working conditions.”

Welcoming the structured bilateral engagement, Solis said, “Our governments share a firm commitment to workers and their rights. Today marks the launch of a new program to share valuable information that will ensure that workers’ rights are respected.”

Kharge said that India was interested in increasing its know-how in the areas of accreditation systems, self-regulation and auditing through collaboration, exchange and sharing of ideas, among other initiatives with the U.S.

During a press conference with Washington-based Indian media, the minister said, “This is the first time India and the U.S. is signing such an important document and naturally it is going to help both of us–more to us and they will be also very anxious to help us.”

Citing a vision by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of teaching skills to 500 million persons by 2022, the visiting minister stated that collaboration with U.S. would “enrich us in the areas of training delivery methods, certification, preparation of instructional material, curriculum development and expanding outreach.”

The latest cooperation move would help in further developing “an appropriate employment strategy for inclusive growth in India and strong bonds between the people of our two great nations,” Kharge emphasized.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States this week expanded cooperation with India on labor and employment issues with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that was hailed by both as a tool to enhance strong bonds between the two democracies.

Calling the MoU “an essential part of our bilateral relationship,” Mark Toner, the State Department spokesman, told journalists on Friday, “When you look at our relationship and the strategic dialogue that we have with India, there’s many baskets of issues that fall under that rubric, and certainly labor laws are one of those.”

Earlier on Thursday, Mallikarjun Kharge, visiting Indian minister for labor and employment, and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis inked a bilateral MoU for cooperation in the areas of skill development, youth employment, occupational safety and health and mines safety and health.

Kharge emphasized that, “the road map laid down in the Memorandum of Understanding will facilitate very close cooperation and interaction between our two countries and bring about improvements in the life of workers and their working conditions.”

Welcoming the structured bilateral engagement, Solis said, “Our governments share a firm commitment to workers and their rights. Today marks the launch of a new program to share valuable information that will ensure that workers’ rights are respected.”

Kharge said that India was interested in increasing its know-how in the areas of accreditation systems, self-regulation and auditing through collaboration, exchange and sharing of ideas, among other initiatives with the U.S.

During a press conference with Washington-based Indian media, the minister said, “This is the first time India and the U.S. is signing such an important document and naturally it is going to help both of us–more to us and they will be also very anxious to help us.”

Citing a vision by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of teaching skills to 500 million persons by 2022, the visiting minister stated that collaboration with U.S. would “enrich us in the areas of training delivery methods, certification, preparation of instructional material, curriculum development and expanding outreach.”

The latest cooperation move would help in further developing “an appropriate employment strategy for inclusive growth in India and strong bonds between the people of our two great nations,” Kharge emphasized.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – Malaria may be killing twice as many people as experts previously thought, and it could also be affecting older children and adults, long considered to be the least susceptible, according to a study published Friday in the journal Lancet.

The World Health Organization reports that malaria cases and deaths have been falling since 2004. The decline is largely attributed to large campaigns to distribute bednets, spray homes with insecticides and make better drugs available.

In December, the WHO reported about 655,000 had died from the disease in 2010.

However, using new available data and modeling tools, researchers put the 2010 figure at about 1.2 million, and note about 90 percent of the deaths were in Africa.

The new findings also challenge the belief that children who grow up in areas with malaria develop immunity to the disease as they get older.

Doctors have long believed that children under 5 years old and pregnant women were the most susceptible to the mosquito-borne disease. However, new findings contradict that notion.

The researchers analyzed data on malaria deaths from 1980 to 2010, including information not used in prior studies. The research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Complicating the ability to come up with an accurate number is that most people killed by the disease are not hospitalized, so tracking their deaths is difficult.

WHO stands by its estimates.

Data from both the WHO and new Lancet study do show the same overall trend, that malaria has been dropping since 2004.

The study’s authors project malaria deaths will fall below 100,000 some time after 2020, thanks to campaigns to eradicate the disease. Experts caution that if health officials let their guard down, malaria could come roaring back.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The pink skips are flying at ailing American Airlines.

The nation’s number three airline told its unions Wednesday it plans to cut some 13,000 jobs from its staff of 88,000.

The cuts will be felt hardest in the airlines’s maintenance operations, where 4,600 jobs will be slashed. More than 4,000 ground worker positions will be lost and 2,300 flight attendants will be axed. Management will be reduced by 1,400.

In a letter to employees, CEO Thomas Horton said, “We will end this journey with many fewer people. But we will also preserve tens of thousands of jobs that would have been lost if we had not embarked on this path.”

Horton said the company needs to save more than $1.25 billion annually in labor costs and reduce costs in each work group as its tries to dig itself out from bankruptcy.

Other savings will come from restructuring debt and leases, grounding older planes and improving supplier contracts. According to Horton, AA wants to cut $2 billion a year in total costs.

AMR, the airline’s parent company, filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 29. Over the past several weeks, rumors have swirled that Delta, US Airways and private capital firms are interested in doing a deal with AMR, but to date, they remain just rumors.

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Johannesburg, South Africa (IRIN) – In the inner-city Johannesburg neighborhood of Berea, where a large proportion of residents are refugees and asylum-seekers, it is not uncommon to see children playing football in the street or killing time at one of the local parks on a weekday. Judith Manjoro, an out-of-work teacher from Zimbabwe, teamed up with some other community workers two years ago to quiz the children about why they were not in school.

“They told us [the schools] asked them to produce ID documents and permits which they don’t have,” she said. “We also found the parents weren’t working and couldn’t afford to pay school fees, even for public schools.”

In early 2011, Manjoro and several other unemployed teachers from Zimbabwe and elsewhere, decided to start a project that would go some way towards meeting the need of local refugee and migrant children for affordable schooling with no bureaucratic strings attached. Word quickly spread and today iTemba Study Centre accommodates about-0 children in five cramped classrooms on the first floor of an office building in Berea. In the mornings the center is open to pre-primary pupils and in the afternoons, seven volunteer teachers teach grades 1-8 using donated textbooks.

“It’s a good school, but we don’t have enough supplies,” said Duduzile Zulu, 15, from Zimbabwe, who started coming to the center about a year ago after her mother’s income as a waitress failed to cover the cost of her attending a nearby private school. To progress to Grade 9 she will need to transfer to another school, “but I don’t have a birth certificate and my Mum can’t get time off work to go to [the Department of] Home Affairs,” she told IRIN, adding that she knew of other migrant children who did not attend school at all.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released a report on refugee education in November 2011 highlighting the limited access refugee children have to education, particularly at secondary levels and for those living in urban areas.

Barriers

While the quality of education available in refugee camps varies, the difficulties of accessing education in urban settings are generally greater. In addition to legal and policy barriers and the often prohibitive costs of sending a child to a local school, the UNHCR report noted that: “refugee children often have less support than in a camp-based school in adjusting to a new curriculum, learning a new language, accessing psychosocial support, and addressing discrimination, harassment, and bullying from teachers and peers. They may also encounter a lack of familiarity by local school authorities for the processes of admitting refugee children and recognizing prior learning.”

A year-long, yet-to-be published study by the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg into the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants to education in South Africa found that schools often demanded documents to enroll a child which are not legally required.

“Often the students don’t have, according to the schools, the right papers,” said Ivor Baatjes, one of the study researchers, adding that school principals and staff at public schools were often ignorant of South Africa’s actual policy which grants every child the right to access education. “Even for children of undocumented migrants, children have the right to be in school and nothing should be a barrier,” he told IRIN.

Demands that parents pay fees at government schools which have been designated as no-fee schools, create a further barrier, said Baatjes, especially for refugees who are often unaware of the law or of their rights. The study also found that those children who are admitted sometimes have to contend with xenophobic attitudes from both teachers and other pupils.

“They treat people equally here,” commented Antonia Tshili, a 16-year-old from Zimbabwe, who left a government school last year after the fees became too much for her mother, and started attending iTemba. “At the other school there is this thing that Zimbabweans should go back to their country; they bullied me.”

UNHCR changes tack

Historically, UNHCR provided scholarships for refugee children to study in government or private schools in urban areas, but with nearly half of refugees now living in urban areas and only 4 percent of UNHCR’s total budget in 2010 dedicated to education, this approach is no longer viable and the agency now prioritizes working with governments to advocate the integration of refugees into national school systems.

In South Africa, UNHCR channels funding through local NGOs which educate refugees about their rights and school principals about their obligation to admit refugee children. Additional funding goes to helping refugee children with school books, uniforms and transport while a new approach, being piloted in Durban, is experimenting with donating lump sum contributions to inner-city government schools on the understanding that they will not turn away any refugee child seeking admission.

“When you look at most of these schools, they host a number of under-privileged children, not only refugees, and the subsidy from government is not great,” said Mmone Moletsane, UNHCR community services officer in South Africa. “While no child should be refused education because there’s no money, schools have to survive.”

Despite such efforts by UNHCR and the NGO community, Baatjes said that centers like iTemba and a similar project based at Sacred Heart College in the nearby neighborhood of Observatory, provided “a much needed space and service” to local migrant and refugee communities.

The donor-funded Three2Six Project at Sacred Heart College, now in its fifth year, uses classrooms vacated by the school’s regular pupils during the afternoons, to teach refugee children up to Grade 6 level. The project also employs teachers who are refugees themselves and able to overcome language and cultural barriers.

“While the parents are busy organizing their lives and trying to get papers from Home Affairs, the children come here,” explained project coordinator Esther Oliver Munonoka. “The aim is not to keep the children here, but prepare them for proper school. By the time they leave, they can understand English and integrate into any school.”

In reality, however, many of the students stay for as long as they can. Nzanga Kapena, 11, from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who has been coming to the Three2Six Project since 2008, said her mother could not afford “regular schools” and that she does not know what will happen next year when she finishes grade six and will have to leave. “My sisters and brother, when they left here, they just stayed at home,” she said.

Future uncertain

The future of iTemba and the Three2Six Project are also uncertain. Neither are recognized by the Department of Education or receive any public funding. The Three2Six Project receives enough donations from faith-based organizations in Europe that its 150 students can attend for free and are given uniforms, stationery and books, but is still not fully-funded for 2012 and will likely have to cut its Grade 6 class next year despite what Munonoka describes as an ever increasing need for its services.

iTemba charges those parents who can afford it R200 (US$26) a month to cover rental of the building and to pay teachers a small stipend, but according to Manjoro, “a number are failing to afford it.”

“My aunt doesn’t pay anything for me to come here,” said Sarah Dube*, a 16-year-old from Zimbabwe, whose mother sent her and her sister to South Africa “to get a better education”.

“I’d like to go to a proper school, but I don’t trust myself that I can make it,” she added. “I think I’m behind.”

*Not her real name

ks/cb

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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United States (KaiserHealth) – The health law’s biggest changes don’t take effect until 2014, when states and insurers must be ready to begin signing up an estimated 32 million people in Medicaid and private insurance. But a successful rollout in two years hinges on critical decisions that states must make – and take quick action on – this year.

It will be difficult for many states to meet fast-approaching deadlines, and some may not make it, says Brett Graham, a managing director at Leavitt Partners, a consulting firm working with states on implementation of the law.

Time is short, and states are missing key pieces of how-to guidance from the federal government about everything from what various insurance exchange options will look like to which benefits must be included in health plans, he says. To make matters worse, states are competing for a limited pool of information technology vendors to help them get started.

“It’s a pressure cooker,” said Graham. States are “in a position where they have to act with imperfect information.”

One of the most pressing tasks for states this year has to do with the creation of exchanges, through which individuals and small businesses can buy insurance starting in 2014.

On Jan. 1, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services will certify which states will be ready to run exchanges on their own. To win certification, a state must enact laws to fund the continuing operations of an exchange. While the federal government is providing financial help up front for the creation of exchanges, states will assume the cost once they are underway. HHS can issue a conditional certification for those states that are making progress but need more time.

Only- states plus the District of Columbia have made legislative progress toward creating an exchange, according to a Jan. 22 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report prepared by the Urban Institute. Another 21 states have demonstrated interest, and 15 have made little headway.

While some states are aggressively moving forward, “at the other end are states that say, ‘no way, no how, we’re not doing it.’ Montana, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, they are not going to build it and they’re playing a game of chicken,” said Graham. “They’re waiting for the Supreme Court,” hoping it will effectively kill the health law in June when it rules on challenges to its constitutionality.

Most states, though, are undecided about whether to build their own exchanges and are moving forward in varying degrees. Even some states that are part of the Supreme Court challenge are moving forward: Colorado, Washington and Nevada have created exchanges.

Originally, the only alternative to a state exchange was a fully federal entity. HHS has since offered to partner with states. That way, a state could retain overall control of an exchange while passing certain responsibilities to the federal government.

But creating a full or partial federal exchange also could be problematic: Some health care analysts question whether the task will be any easier for the federal government. It faces the same short timeline as states this year, and while Obama administration officials say they have the money to fund exchange activity, some health care analysts say they aren’t so sure.

Most state legislatures are scheduled to adjourn for the year by March or April, before the Supreme Court rules, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Reconvening after the ruling would be difficult in an election year.

Insurers Need Long Lead Time

Insurers, which will offer coverage to individuals and small businesses through the exchanges, also are worried about the timetable. Until they know more about required benefits, for example, health plans say it’s difficult to develop new products, negotiate with doctors and hospitals and invest in information technology.

“Open enrollment has to be ready to go by Oct. 1, 2013, so in January of 2013 we have to submit our products and rates for [state] approval,” said Alissa Fox, senior vice president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. If health plans make changes before the federal government issues its specific requirements, they might have to start over, and that can be costly and time consuming, she says. “We want to change our claims processing system once, our enrollment system once.”

Last fall, Blue Cross urged HHS to release all outstanding regulations by the beginning of 2012 to give states and insurers sufficient time to make decisions.

That hasn’t happened. Among other things, states urgently need guidance on how the federal government would partner with states on exchanges or run its own exchanges, says Joy Johnson Wilson, health policy director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “No rule, no concept,” she said. “Soon is good.”

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, director of coverage policy at HHS, said that working with states is a “top priority … As we get similar questions from states, we will put out guidance to answer general questions. We’re going to continue to be responsive.”

On Jan. 25, HHS provided more details about the kinds of benefits insurers will be required to offer consumers and small businesses beginning in 2014. The agency had been under pressure to provide more information after releasing a general “bulletin” in December giving states broad flexibility to design benefits.

State legislators are particularly eager to learn how they can divvy up responsibilities with the federal government in the case of a federal or partnered exchange. One of the most important questions is who decides whether low-income people are eligible for Medicaid or federal subsidies to buy insurance in an exchange. The Medicaid program is being expanded to include people with income higher than currently allowed.

Graham sees a possible clash of federal and state budget interests over Medicaid, which states help fund. For the first two years Washington will pay 100 percent of the costs for the newly eligible, but the federal contribution will taper off to 90 percent beginning in 2020.

“If the federal government wants someone to be covered, it may say that person is eligible for Medicaid,” Graham said. “A state that already has a significant budget crisis won’t want to expand Medicaid. Who owns the process?”

Krista Drobac, director of the health division at the National Governors Association, says states want authority over eligibility. “It’s hard to control your program design if you’re not responsible for determining eligibility and enrolling people,” she said.

That’s why states are beginning to lay the groundwork for information technology, she says. They’re scrambling to sign technology vendors, who are in short supply.

Drobac says states have enough information to get started, even while missing details. But officials are worried.

“We’re down to the wire,” said Wilson. “When the bill passed in 2010, 2014 seemed a long way away. But when you back into what it takes to get the program up and running, it’s a very short timetable.”

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Khartoum, Sudan (AHN) – Sudan’s army on Monday was pursuing rebels who kidnapped 29 Chinese workers in the restive South Kordofan region.

Fighters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which is trying to overthrow Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, seized the workers in the compound of a Chinese construction company involved in a local road project on Saturday during a clash with government troops.

Fourteen Chinese workers were rescued by soldiers while another 15 were missing, according to Khartoum government spokesman Rabie Abdelaty. The state-owned Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that 18 Chinese workers who fled the compound when rebels raided it were found in a neighboring area and secured.

The Chinese construction company’s security personnel were working with Sudanese authorities in the rescue of the workers.

The rebels claimed the Chinese workers were unharmed and they were just protecting the foreigners from harm during the fighting with government troops. They denied any link with the South Sudan government, which is ruled by a party having the same name as the rebels’ group.

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Boston, MA, United States (AHN) – New England is going to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis this Sunday where they will face the New York Giants in what is expected to be one of the most watched games in TV history, and one of the best displays of some football in some time.

In a congratulatory gesture, Patriots’s quarterback Tom Brady gave each player on the team a pair of Ugg boots.

This is the second time the generous Brady, who endorses the footwear, gave the boots to his fellow teammates.

Meanwhile, the cult-like, sheepskin, fur-lined and comfy boots have been given the boot at Pottsdown Middle School outside Philadelphia.

Principal Gail M. Cooper said the boots (and their less expensive imitators) have become the hiding place of choice for cellphones and other gadgets that are not supposed to be brought to class.

Some fashionistas consider Uggs just plain ugly; others can’t get enough of them, even wearing the warm footwear year-round.

While Brady and the Patriots will be sporting them as they head to the Super Bowl, some middle school kids will have to leave them at home.

bx

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Myanmar (IRIN) – Aid workers in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State have expressed concern over the health of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) along the border with China.

Preventable illnesses caused by unsanitary conditions and colder weather are taking their toll on the more than 45,000 IDPs in two dozen IDP camps as sporadic fighting between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) nears almost eight months, they say.

“Many of the children in the IDP camps suffer from diarrhea and stomach parasites because they have to drink dirty water. When they go to the toilet, there aren’t enough,” May Li Aung, director of Wun Pawng Ninghtoi (WPN – “Light of Kachin”), a volunteer group comprising eight local NGOs and charity groups, told IRIN.

In one camp, aid workers report just five latrines for more than 1,200 people.

“A few people in the camps have already died from this and we are worried that diseases will spread,” she said.

While much of the water supply is trucked into the camps, many of the displaced while on the run have to drink directly from streams or boil pond water

The WPN assists 16 camps under KIA control in the southern part of Kachin State, where about 20,000 IDPs are housed in temporary bamboo shelters, but there is a growing strain on volunteers and resources as the conflict continues.

In the north, another 20,000 IDPs are housed in camps also under KIA control, with about 10,000 in the government-controlled area around the border town of Myitkyina.

Vulnerable women

“Women in the camps can use the clinics there; however, many women are not getting the midwife or family support they need,” Shirley Seng, a spokeswoman for the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT), based in Chiang Mai, said. “Many women feel insecure and at risk of possible assault by Burmese troops.”

“The problem that we face right now is that many women who are pregnant are having miscarriages,” explained nurse Di Di Ah Hkaw.

The pregnant women have no choice but to run from their homes to a safe place while many of their husbands are fighting on the frontline. Many of the women are carrying their household possessions with them, she explained.

“In December we had three women in our clinic who miscarried,” Di Di Ah Hkaw added.

Meanwhile, as the political dialogue between Myanmar and others in the international community slowly moves forward, international relief groups are calling for faster action to better address the needs of the displaced.

Earlier this month, Refugees International released a report calling for increased humanitarian aid to coincide with a string of recent political reforms by the country’s first nominally civilian government in decades.

At the same time, Bill Davies of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) described a recent UN inter-agency mission to the KIA-controlled town border town of Laiza in December – which delivered essential household items to the displaced and conducted an initial assessment of the situation – as a positive step, but stressed the need for stronger assistance and access.

The UN and its humanitarian partners have repeatedly expressed their readiness to support all those affected by the conflict, and the most vulnerable in particular, a statement by the UN read at the time.

“There needs to be consistency and more access for bigger organizations to go in and provide better technical support for the people on the ground.

“Something as simple as diarrhea could kill someone as the dehydration leads to the immune system breaking down which could lead to respiratory problems and pneumonia – and eventually death,” the health worker warned.

On 9 June 2011, the 17-year-old cease fire that had been in place between the government and the KIA broke down, in part because the KIA rejected orders to transform into a single border guard force under Burmese military control. Others still cite the military’s desire to widen its control over areas with Chinese energy projects .

ss/ds/mw

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Jacksonville, FL, United States (KaiserHealth) – For a candidate who keeps vowing to repeal the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sure can make a convincing argument on its behalf.

At least that’s how it appeared to a lot of people after Thursday night’s Republican presidential candidate debate in Jacksonville, FL.

During a more than 10-minute back-and-forth on health care largely between Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Romney ended up delivering a lengthy justification for his state’s decision to pass a 2006 law that included requiring nearly every resident to either have health insurance or pay a tax penalty.

“If you don’t want to buy insurance, then you have to help pay for the cost of the state picking up your bill, because under federal law if someone doesn’t have insurance, then we have to care for them in the hospitals, give them free care,” said Romney. “So we said, no more, no more free riders. We are insisting on personal responsibility. Either get the insurance or help pay for your care.”

“Does everybody in Massachusetts have a requirement to buy health care?” asked Santorum.

“Everyone has a requirement to either buy it or pay the state for the cost of providing them free care,” Romney shot back. “Because the idea of people getting something for free when they could afford to care for themselves is something that we decided in our state was not a good idea.”

Santorum’s conclusion was that “in Massachusetts, everybody is mandated, as a condition of breathing … to buy health insurance, and if you don’t … you have to pay a fine.”

But backers of the requirement saw Romney’s explanation in a somewhat different light.

Said John McDonough, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, “Romney has given in this entire presidential campaign last evening what I believe is the most effective and persuasive rationale and defense of the individual mandate.”

Of course, that may not be a good thing for Romney as he fights to win over Republicans who dislike the 2010 law in general, and the insurance requirement in particular. Santorum said the Massachusetts law passed under Romney’s stewardship in 2006 is too close to the federal law for Republicans to make health care an issue this fall.

“It does not provide the contrast we need with Barack Obama if we’re going to take on that most important issue. We cannot give the issue of health care away in this election,” he said.

And while Romney insisted that the Massachusetts law and the federal law differ in significant ways, McDonough, who was intimately involved in the development and passage of both the Massachusetts and federal health laws, insists that’s not really the case.

“The similarities go far far beyond the mandate,” he said. For example, “the essential architecture of the insurance reforms in the Affordable Care Act are taken wholly from the Massachusetts health reform law.”

On the other hand, Santorum may have overspoken when he claimed that the Massachusetts law isn’t working very well.

Just this week the policy journal Health Affairs published a study looking at the Massachusetts program’s first five years in operation.

“We find the state is continuing to do quite well in terms of maintaining high levels of health insurance coverage and improvements in access to care,” said lead author Sharon Long of the University of Minnesota and the Urban Institute. “Including for the first time we’re seeing reductions in emergency department use, and also some improvements in health status. So really, some very positive changes that came with health reform.”

Positive for Massachusetts residents, perhaps. Positive for Mitt Romney’s chances to win the Republican nomination? That still remains to be seen.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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