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Viewpoints: Health law problems plague Calif. too; Obamacare redistribution is from lucky to unlucky; FDA crackdown on genetic testing

While politicians in Washington are hailing California's exchange as proof of the law's success, voters in California don't seem to agree - and it's not hard to understand why. Policies for about 900,000 Californians are being cancelled because they don't meet the law's benefit mandates.

11 Dec 2013

Maryland's online insurance marketplace plagued by technical issues, discord

The director of the state exchange resigned Friday. Meanwhile, the web portal continues to be marked by operational difficulties that are undermining enrollment efforts.

9 Dec 2013

First Edition: December 9, 2013

Today's headlines include reports about new sticker-shock concerns over costs for coverage purchased through the health law's new online insurance marketplaces.

9 Dec 2013

NIAID awards $4.4M grant to study unknown gene function in bacteria that cause plague, brucellosis

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded the University of Chicago $4.4 million over five years to study genes of unknown function in bacteria that cause plague and brucellosis.

20 Nov 2013

Study suggests potential new treatment for seizures

A study out today in the journal Nature Medicine suggests a potential new treatment for the seizures that often plague children with genetic metabolic disorders and individuals undergoing liver failure. The discovery hinges on a new understanding of the complex molecular chain reaction that occurs when the brain is exposed to too much ammonia.

17 Nov 2013

USA Today reports 140,000 people have enrolled in plans on marketplaces run by 13 states

State officials say the numbers are low because of snags in the websites and because consumers aren't yet worried about the sign-up deadline. Other news organizations examine some of the marketplace issues in states.

11 Nov 2013

Weight loss surgery: The most effective weapon for obese people in the battle against diabetes

Noted bariatric surgeon Michael Feiz, M.D., F.A.C.S., believes that there's no time like American Diabetes Month to point out that weight loss surgery is the most effective weapon obese people have in the battle against diabetes.

5 Nov 2013

Sebelius faces withering criticism on and off Capitol Hill

The Health and Human Services secretary is testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee today, as critics question her leadership of the department.

31 Oct 2013

First Edition: October 31, 2013

Today's headlines include reports about how health law complications are quickly moving beyond problems with the healthcare.gov website to include other issues.

30 Oct 2013

Healthcare.gov's technical problems persist even as some hiccups are fixed

For instance, the troubled healthcare.gov was recovering Monday from an outage caused by one of the companies supporting the site.

30 Oct 2013

Finger pointing surrounds health care website woes

News outlets examine some of the technology issues, as well as political dynamics, that contributed to the launch difficulties.

23 Oct 2013

First Edition: October 22, 2013

Today's headlines include reports about the Obama administration's plans to address the problems with healthcare.gov.

22 Oct 2013

Health exchange issues? There are many, say experts and consumers

The reviews may not be good, but people are visiting the new health care web sites, according to the new AP-GfK poll. In addition, experts offer possible reasons for the problems that continue to plague the federal health insurance web site. Meanwhile, various news outlets examine how certain states are faring with the federal and state exchanges.

11 Oct 2013

Day 2: Consumers shopping for insurance on exchanges continue to confront delays, challenges

Interest and demand appeared to overload websites and clog phone lines. Federal officials, who were taking steps to build additional capacity into the system, said traffic to the website exceeded expectations.

4 Oct 2013

First Edition: October 3, 2013

Today's headlines include reports about how the federal and state health exchanges worked on their second day of operations. In the background, the congressional budget stand off continues.

3 Oct 2013

Despite snags, online insurance marketplaces open for business

The technical glitches were complicated by the millions of people who visited the online health exchanges on Tuesday, their first day of operations. For instance, Health and Human Services officials reported that 2.8 million unique visitors had been to the federal website.

3 Oct 2013

First Edition: October 2, 2013

Today's headlines include news reports about how the health law's new online insurance marketplaces -- glitches and all -- went live at both the federal and state levels.

2 Oct 2013

New series of lectures focus on rodents, medicines and drug developments

Rodents, medicines and drug developments are all on the agenda during a new series of public lectures being staged by the University of Greenwich's Faculty of Engineering & Science.

18 Sep 2013

Researchers discover how Yersinia immobilizes immune system to spread within organs

Researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts have identified how one type of bacteria, Yersinia, immobilizes the immune system in order to grow in the organs of mice. To do so, the researchers extended the use of a technique and suggest that it could be used to study other bacteria that use the same or similar means of infection.

17 Sep 2013

Researchers explore distinctions between natural sleep and anesthetic unconsciousness

Falling asleep in your bed at night and being "put to sleep" under general anesthesia - as well as waking up in the morning or coming out of anesthesia - aren't quite the same thing, yet they share some important similarities. Max Kelz, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, along with colleagues from Penn, UCSD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Thomas Jefferson University, explored the distinctions between anesthetic unconsciousness and sleep by manipulating the genetic pathways known to be involved in natural sleep and studying the resulting effects on anesthetic states.

6 Sep 2013