Daily Rounds: Jury Still Out On BPA; Blaming Rate Hikes on Reform; Malpractice Not So Costly; Digital Spanking

In Feast of Data on BPA Plastic, No Final Answer - NYTimes.com "The research has been going on for more than 10 years. Studies number in the hundreds. Millions of dollars have been spent. But government health officials still cannot decide whether the chemical bisphenol-A, or BPA, a component of some plastics, is safe." (The New York Times)

Insurers Pin Rate Hikes on Health Law - WSJ.com "Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators." (Wall Street Journal)

Medical Liability Costs Make Up 2.4% of U.S. Health Spending - Bloomberg While “not trivial,” the amount for malpractice is less than “some imaginative estimates put forward in the health reform debate,” researchers wrote.
The authors concluded that policymakers could achieve more progress by changing health-care delivery and payment, such as the fee-for-service system doctors use to charge patients for each service and visit. (bloomberg.com)

Parents use 'digital' grounding as a 21st century disciplinary tool '"It's a modern version of grounding," says Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist and author of "The Parents We Mean to Be." "It's like taking away a weekend or a couple of weekends. It's a deprivation of social connections in the same way."' (The Washington Post)