Daily Rounds: Health Costs Rising; High Fructose Corn Syrup Lives On; Price-Checking Medicine; Rat Rehab Breakthrough

Heath Care Costs To RIse 7.5 Percent In 2013, Study Says (Reuters) — "The cost of healthcare services is expected to rise 7.5 percent in 2013, more than three times the projected rates for inflation and economic growth, according to an industry research report released on Thursday. But premiums for large employer-sponsored health plans could increase by only 5.5 percent as a result of company wellness programs and a growing trend toward plans that impose higher insurance costs on workers, said the report by the professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC."

No New Name For High Fructose Corn Syrup (The New York Times) — "The United States Food and Drug Administration has rejected a request from the Corn Refiners Association to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup. The association, which represents the companies that make the syrup, had petitioned the F.D.A. in September 2010 to begin calling the much-maligned sweetener “corn sugar.” The request came on the heels of a national advertising campaign promoting the syrup as a natural ingredient made from corn."

More Americans Are Checking Prices Before Getting Health Care (NPR) — "In the latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll we asked people across the country whether they size up the prices for care before making decisions. And, if so, how they do it. We put the same questions to more than 3,000 people back in September 2010, and we were curious to see how much had changed... Among the recent health care consumers, 16 percent said they'd looked for prices beforehand, compared with 11 percent who'd answered that way in the previous poll."

In Rat Experiment, New Hope For Spinal Injuries (The New York Times) — "The report, published online on Thursday in the journal Science, provides a striking demonstration of what until recently few scientists thought possible: complete rehabilitation after a disabling blow to the spinal cord. After weeks of training, many of the rats could walk as well as before the injury, and some could run."