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Seminar highlights the importance of chronic health issues

With 125 million Americans challenged by at least one chronic illness and 22% of that number facing life with two or more chronic illnesses, early, smart estate and financial planning can make the difference between maximizing control over your life or falling victim to its exigencies.

7 Nov 2009

Speaker Pelosi comments on Congressman Anthony Weiner's single payer alternative

While our bill contains unprecedented reforms, including an end to discrimination for pre-existing conditions and a prohibition on raising rates or dropping coverage if you become ill, our bill cannot include provisions some strongly advocated. The single payer alternative is one of those provisions that could not be included in H.R. 3962, but which has generated support within the Congress and throughout the country.

7 Nov 2009

Experts applaud the EU Presidency for establishing a transatlantic task force to address antibiotic resistance

Experts on both sides of the Atlantic applaud President Barack Obama and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, representing the European Union (EU) Presidency, for establishing a transatlantic task force to address antibiotic resistance, an urgent and growing problem that threatens patient safety and public health worldwide.

7 Nov 2009

Obama goes back on his 2008 pledge, endorses healthcare bill raising taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year

By formally endorsing the House healthcare bill today, President Barack Obama effectively announced that the central promise of his 2008 campaign was a lie.

7 Nov 2009

2009 H1N1 influenza PPE federal guidance for healthcare workers causes concern among prevention experts

Three leading scientific organizations specializing in infectious diseases prevention issued a letter to President Obama today expressing their significant concern with current federal guidance concerning the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by healthcare workers in treating suspected or confirmed cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza.

7 Nov 2009

Health care leaders to address the value of collaboration and challenges inherent to interoperability

A panel of executives representing public-sector health, health care providers, health care information technology, and health plans will address the value of collaboration and the challenges inherent to interoperability, especially as both topics pertain to health information networks.

7 Nov 2009

Hoyer says House health vote could be delayed

"House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said 'delay tactics' could prevent the vote from occurring at the 6 p.m. Saturday scheduled time," and "suggested the debate could go into Sunday or next week," The Hill reports.

7 Nov 2009

NHLBI stops enrollment in study comparing resuscitation strategies

Enrollment has ended early in a large, multicenter clinical trial comparing two distinct resuscitation strategies delivered by emergency medical service (EMS) providers to increase blood flow during cardiac arrest. The study's independent monitoring board and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the lead sponsor of the study, stopped enrollment based on preliminary data suggesting that neither strategy significantly improved survival.

7 Nov 2009

San Francisco map of HIV viral loads shows where care lags

Researchers in San Francisco have identified how much virus people infected with HIV are carrying and mapped their results, which show that that AIDS treatment lags in certain neighborhoods. The work also showed that the sickest patients were often African-American, homeless and transgender.

7 Nov 2009

Insurance companies make the best of a very bad year

"Rising unemployment, swine flu and the threat of health care reform all ganged up on managed care companies in the third quarter and could hurt their performance heading into 2010," the Associated Press reports.

7 Nov 2009

American Academy of Nursing inducts seven editors of LWW as Academy Fellows

The American Academy of Nursing today inducted seven editors and editorial board members of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) nursing publications as Academy Fellows. LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, and pharmacy.

7 Nov 2009

Reuters examines China's involvement in fighting Malaria in Africa

Chinese scientists have been working on enhancing "the rare sweet wormwood shrub, from which artemisinin - the best drug to fight malaria - is derived" in an effort to fight malaria "not on its own soil, where the deadly disease has been sharply pruned back, but in Africa, where it still kills one child every 30 seconds," Reuters reports.

7 Nov 2009

Poll examines the American public's response to H1N1 vaccine shortage

A new national poll from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that a majority of adults who tried to get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves or their children have been unable to do so. The poll, which examines the American public's response to the H1N1 vaccine shortage, is the fifth in a series of surveys of public views concerning the H1N1 flu outbreak undertaken by the Harvard Opinion Research Program at HSPH.

7 Nov 2009

Health policy research roundup

Health Affairs: Enrollment Is Driving Medicaid Costs—But Two Targets Can Yield Savings - "Although Medicaid spending has grown faster than the rate of increase in national health spending, much of this is explained by increased enrollment," write the authors of this paper, who present data showing that "[p]er enrollee, Medicaid spending actually compares favorably to increases in medical care prices and gross domestic product."

7 Nov 2009

Nytimes looks at doctors' crucial role in reshaping U.S. health system

Doctors and hospital payment systems remain at the center of the health care reform debate as news outlets examine the benefits of replacing the current fee-for-service approach.

7 Nov 2009

WHO, MSF highlight poor health situation in Southern Sudan

Three quarters of people in South Sudan, which has a population of 8 million, do not have access to health care, and 10 percent of children there and in Darfur die before the age of 1, Mohammad Abdur Rab, the WHO's representative to Sudan, said Thursday, Reuters/ABC News reports.

7 Nov 2009

With clocking ticking toward Saturday, House leaders continue push for health reform votes

The Associated Press: "Voting is set for Saturday on the 10-year, $1.2 trillion legislation that embraces Obama's goals of extending health coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and putting tough new restrictions on insurance companies." The points of contention remain abortion and immigration (Werner, 11/6).

7 Nov 2009

Student health plans in Massachusetts blasted by report

"Insurance companies rack up much higher profits on health coverage sold to nearly 100,000 Massachusetts college students than on plans available to the general public, according to long-awaited data released late yesterday by the state," The Boston Globe reports.

7 Nov 2009

Obama to meet with House Democrats Saturday

President Barack Obama's meeting with House Democrats - originally scheduled for today - is now slated for tomorrow, in advance of an expected weekend vote on the health reform bill.

7 Nov 2009

NIH grants $1 million to study whether Transcendental Meditation can prevent future heart attacks in CHD patients

The National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute will fund a $1 million collaborative study by the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management Research Institute and Columbia University Medical Center to determine whether the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique can help patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) prevent future heart attacks, strokes and death.

7 Nov 2009