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Senate Democrats eye August timeline, search for savings

Despite some roadblocks, Senate Democrats are trying to hold true to their pledge to pass health care reform legislation by the August recess, Roll Call reports.

7 Jul 2009

Seattle-area health cooperative offers alternative health system model

Innovations in care by a Seattle-area cooperative and clinic are shaping debate about what health care reform around America should look like, The New York Times reports.

7 Jul 2009

Short-timer Whitehouse has his say

"While Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is expected to be on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee only for a short time, he should have a major effect on health reform," Roll Call reports.

7 Jul 2009

Senator Kennedy's absence from health care reform debate looms large

Roll Call reports that lobbyists feel Senator Edward Kennedy's absence: "With the health care reform debate in full tilt, it's fair to assume that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is the key player in producing the final version of the Senate's package.

7 Jul 2009

TV ad wars beginning over health overhaul proposals

The Associated Press reports that ads focused on congressional efforts to overhaul the nation's system are now appearing and will heat up as the summer progresses. "Through June 27, $31 million has been spent for roughly 47,000 TV ads on health care this year, says Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a firm that tracks issue advertising. That's double the roughly $14 million the insurance industry spent in 1993 and 1994 for the famous 'Harry and Louise' ads..., but a fraction of the $250 million Tracey guesses will ultimately be spent this year."

7 Jul 2009

Lawmakers seek compromise on health overhaul proposals

Democrats and Republicans are saying that they will need to compromise on a government-run public plan if they are to meet the deadline of having a bill on the Senate floor by the August recess, The Associated Press reports.

7 Jul 2009

Pilot study removes standard hospital bed as focal point of labor

A University of Toronto pilot study that re-conceptualized the hospital labour room by removing the standard, clinical bed and adding relaxation-promoting equipment had a 28 per cent drop in infusions of artificial oxcytocin, a powerful drug used to advance slow labours.

6 Jul 2009

Australian national health system just an election pipe dream

Election threats by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of a Federal takeover of public hospitals if the states failed to improve hospital services by the middle of 2009, appears to have been put on hold, prompting the opposition to claim that Labor has reneged on a 2007 election promise to deal with embattled state hospitals systems.

30 Jun 2009

In South Florida, risk of unemployment would accompany health reform benefits

The Miami Herald reports that healthcare reform could acutely affect South Florida and provide both benefits and risks.

30 Jun 2009

Small businesses wary of health care legislation

"Rising costs and a weak economy" are leaving small business employees "with higher out-of-pocket health costs," USA Today reports. Those small companies are "exactly what the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had in mind this month when it estimated as many as 15 million people could lose the benefits they currently receive through their jobs under a Democratic proposal to overhaul health care.

30 Jun 2009

Obama leaves door open to tax on health benefits

"President Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected the idea of fully taxing Americans' employer-provided health insurance benefits, but suggested he might be persuaded to tax so-called Cadillac coverage ... in the interest of a compromise with Congress," McClatchy/The Star-Telegram reports.

29 Jun 2009

Critics escalate attacks on health care overhaul

Tensions are showing as health reform continues to be center stage on the President's and Congress' domestic policy agenda.

29 Jun 2009

Finance Committee Senators: Reform bill trimmed to less than $1 trillion

Some senators on the Finance Committee said Thursday they've moved closer to cutting their health reform bill's cost to under $1 trillion.

29 Jun 2009

Electrothermally driven micropumps for medicine

In biomedicine and biotechnology the smallest, complex, compound sample quantities must be reliably processed. Microsystems with new mechanisms of action for pumping, filtering and separating will manage this task with great efficiency in the future.

25 Jun 2009

Baucus takes center stage as health reform deal maker

"As President Obama's effort to overhaul the health care system seems to hit one roadblock after another in Congress, he is counting on Senator Max Baucus [D-Mont.], a political shape-shifter and crafty deal maker who is not fully trusted by either party, to help him clinch his top domestic priority," the New York Times reports in a profile of the Senate Finance Committee leader.

25 Jun 2009

Business groups note faults in House Democrats' overhaul plan

House Democrats readying a health reform bill without a price tag or a budget analysis will hear from business interests today that their plan is irrevocably broken and that they need to start from scratch, CongressDaily reports.

25 Jun 2009

HHS Secretary presses lawmakers on health care

"Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a U.S. House panel Wednesday that the Obama administration is willing to negotiate how health overhaul legislation is paid for, but not whether it is paid for," according to the Dow Jones Newswires.

25 Jun 2009

Finance Committee continues work on health overhaul, benefits tax advances in negotiations

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee continued its mark up of health care reform legislation while the Senate Finance Committee "was hunkered down in negotiations on its version, with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) shuttling between closed-door meetings to try to reach a consensus," Roll Call reports.

25 Jun 2009

Dental health advocates want to sink teeth into health care reform

The Washington Post reports many oral health professionals worry that dental issues have "a tenuous place at best in the national debate" regarding an overhaul of the health care system. Still, they emphasize that dental health is an integral part of health care and note the special burden untreated dental issues have on poor children.

23 Jun 2009

Dodd stretched thin on finance and health roles

Critics are saying that Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., cannot handle his role in financial regulatory reform while he sits in for ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy on the House's health committee, Politico reports.

23 Jun 2009