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Medicare plan will be central to Ryan GOP budget

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is set to unveil a new budget plan on Tuesday. Both Democrats and Republicans are poised to revive the pitched debate over controversial proposals related to the Medicare programs.

19 Mar 2012

First Edition: March 19, 2012

Today's headlines reflect the anticipation and anxiety that surrounds the Supreme Court's upcoming health law oral arguments.

19 Mar 2012

Researchers show how errant form of LYP can disrupt the immune system

Autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, are caused by an immune system gone haywire, where the body's defense system assaults and destroys healthy tissues. A mutant form of a protein called LYP has been implicated in multiple autoimmune diseases, but the precise molecular pathway involved has been unknown.

19 Mar 2012

U.S. to launch graphic anti-smoking warnings

The United States Government is starting a major new effort to cut the country's smoking rate by showing graphic images of people who have sustained life-altering health problems after smoking for years.

18 Mar 2012

Feds begin funding cuts to Texas Women's Health Program

Federal officials said they would begin to phase out their 90-percent portion of the Texas Women's Health Program as they had promised to do after Texas lawmakers banned Planned Parenthood from the program. CMS officials said the reductions would be gradual.

17 Mar 2012

Administration lawyers shift Supreme Court arguments to draw support from key justices

Part of their challenge is to convince the justices the health care marketplace is "unique." Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius talked to Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill about "alternatives" to the individual mandate if it were struck down. And The Wall Street Journal reports the oral arguments before the Supreme Court may be the hottest show in Washington.

17 Mar 2012

HHS Secretary launches new educational initiative, MyCare

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today unveiled "MyCare," a collection of online personal video and blog stories of Americans helped by the Affordable Care Act.

17 Mar 2012

Infants' faces evoke species-specific patterns of brain activity in adults

Distinct patterns of activity-which may indicate a predisposition to care for infants-- appear in the brains of adults who view an image of an infant face-even when the child is not theirs, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and in Germany, Italy, and Japan.

17 Mar 2012

Translating the health law into reality one regulation at a time

Part of implementing the health law includes replacing jargon in health insurance policies with plain English. Meanwhile, the release of a federal mental health parity rule is held up to coordinate it with the overhaul.

16 Mar 2012

Older women with mild retinopathy more likely to have cognitive decline and related vascular changes

Women 65 or older who have even mild retinopathy, a disease of blood vessels in the retina, are more likely to have cognitive decline and related vascular changes in the brain, according to a multi-institutional study led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

16 Mar 2012

Viewpoints: Health costs crushing Detroit; Military care still faces funding issues; Romneycare scores

Legacy costs are bankrupting Detroit just as they crushed its automakers. Firefighters can retire at 55 and earn 70% of their highest salary plus a 2.25% annual cost-of-living inflator in perpetuity. The result? Employee benefits alone now make up about half of the city's general fund. Health costs have grown by more than 60% since 2008 while the city's pension bill has quadrupled to $200 million.

16 Mar 2012

Prostate cancer screening debate continues

Routine tests that help detect prostate cancer actually do reduce the risk of death from the disease, researchers said. Screening is done with a simple blood test that measures levels of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA.

15 Mar 2012

Imported food leading to more foodborne disease outbreaks

Foodborne disease outbreaks caused by imported food appeared to rise in 2009 and 2010, and nearly half of the outbreaks implicated foods imported from areas which previously had not been associated with outbreaks, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, presented today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta.

15 Mar 2012

Women with retinopathy more likely to have cognitive problems

People with mild vascular disease that causes damage to the retina in the eye are more likely to have problems with thinking and memory skills because they may also have vascular disease in the brain, according to a study published in the March 14, 2012, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

15 Mar 2012

What's next for Texas' women's health plan, other states consider abortion and contraception legislation

News outlets are considering the next moves for Texas' Women's Health Program after the federal government said it won't renew its funding for the program over the state's plan to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. In the meantime, state legislatures in Colorado, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania consider contraception and abortion legislation.

15 Mar 2012

New rule ensuring equal access for ESRD patients receives DPC praise

Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC), the nation's largest patient-led organization representing dialysis patients, applauded the Administration for taking steps to solidify a key provision that will ensure end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients have equal access to private coverage as Affordable Care Act reforms are implemented.

14 Mar 2012

Obama administration releases rules for health exchanges, emphasizes flexibility for states

The regulations outline minimum standards that states must meet to set up and run these health insurance marketplaces by a Jan. 1, 2014, deadline.

14 Mar 2012

Publicly available profile of effects of approved and investigational medicines

The National Institutes of Health and Eli Lilly and Company will generate a publicly available resource to profile the effects of thousands of approved and investigational medicines in a variety of sophisticated disease-relevant testing systems, NIH announced today.

14 Mar 2012

Texas - Feds standoff on women's health continues

HHS Secretary Sebelius warned the state that funds would be cut off if officials carry out the threat of excluding Planned Parenthood.

14 Mar 2012

GOP fissures likely to emerge with efforts to revamp budget deal, Medicare

House Republicans appear divided over whether to push for deeper spending cuts in the 2013 budget plan than those agreed upon during last year's debt ceiling deal. Democrats and Republicans are also preparing for a Medicare fight. Meanwhile, some GOP senators have requested a hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to discuss revised cost estimates for the health law.

14 Mar 2012