Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has asked businesses and charitable groups to make large donations to help underwrite the costs of public outreach associated with the overhaul. A GOP leader is questioning the legality of the efforts.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released a new tool to help bolster the food industry's defense measures against an act of intentional food contamination.
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Today's headlines include reports that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been seeking out funds from private sources to support efforts to publicize the health law.
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President Barack Obama was unusually detailed in his defense of the law, emphasizing the scope of insurance coverage for many Americans.
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There has been a flurry of recent attention over two novel infectious agents: the first, a strain of avian influenza virus (H7N9) in China that is causing severe respiratory disease and other serious health complications in people; the second, a coronavirus, first reported last year in the Middle East, that has brought a crop of new infections.
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Findings from the first large-scale sequencing analysis of congenital heart disease bring us closer to understanding this most common type of birth defect. The analysis found that spontaneous, or de novo, mutations affect a specific biological pathway that is critical to aspects of human development, including the brain and heart.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to consume any juice products or other beverages from Juices Incorporated (aka Juices International and Juices Enterprises) of Brooklyn, N.Y.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Breo Ellipta (fluticasone furoate and vilanterol inhalation powder) for the long-term, once-daily, maintenance treatment of airflow obstruction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, including chronic bronchitis and/or emphysema.
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A new report shows that among the approximately 57,000 teenage female (ages 12 to 19) substance abuse treatment admissions each year, about 2,000 (4 percent) involve pregnant teens.
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Abbott today announced CE Marking (Conformité Européenne) for the ARCHITECT clinical chemistry Hemoglobin A1c test, which may aid physicians in diagnosing and monitoring diabetes as well as identifying patients at risk for developing diabetes.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting health care providers, hospital supply managers, and pharmacists that the FDA's preliminary findings of practices at The Compounding Shop of St. Petersburg, Fla., raise concerns about a lack of sterility assurance for sterile drugs produced at and distributed from this site.
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A bill that restructures the way Medicaid is administered passed the Alabama Legislature Tuesday and now awaits the governor's signature. The State Medicaid Agency now pays doctors directly for services provided to Medicaid patients. Under the new policy, there will be several regions managed by privately owned, for-profit Regional Care Organizations that will contract with doctors and other providers (Wingard, 5/7).
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When it comes to patient safety, all hospitals and U.S. states aren't created equal, according to the newly updated Hospital Safety Score. The Spring 2013 update to the Hospital Safety Score that assigns "A," "B," "C," "D" or "F" grades to more than 2,500 general hospitals in the United States showed hospitals have made only incremental progress in addressing errors, accidents, injuries and infections that kill or hurt their patients.
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Today's headlines include reports about government data showing the wide variation in what hospitals charge Medicare patients for common inpatient procedures.
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A study comparing low-income people in Oregon who received access to Medicaid over the past two years with those who did not, found that those on Medicaid visited doctors and hospitals more often, suffered less from depression and were more financially secure.
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An analysis by the New York Health Benefits Exchange projects that in New York, unlike in many other states, the health law will likely lead to lower health premiums next year.
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The American Medical Group Association announced today that the Palo Alto Medical Foundation donated $20,000 to support Measure Up/Pressure Down, a national campaign to improve high blood pressure prevention, detection, and control, spearheaded by the American Medical Group Foundation, AMGA's nonprofit education and research arm.
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CQ HealthBeat reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is now collecting contact information for consumers so the agency can provide updates. Meanwhile, Illinois opened a competitive grant process to award funds to community groups to help with the state's consumer education effort.
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Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Tuesday that he would allow the nomination of Marilyn Tavenner to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to go forward.
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Some Democrats worry they will face political repercussions if there are snags that can be exploited by Republicans.
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