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Healthcare reform gets boost from hospital groups

"In the face of mounting Republican opposition to its healthcare agenda, the Obama administration received a boost Wednesday, winning a preliminary agreement with leading hospital groups to cut federal payments to the industry over the next decade," The Los Angeles Times reports.

9 Jul 2009

Health care overhaul ignores illegal immigrants

"As Congress wrangles with overhauling the health care system, there is one population not being discussed. No proposal for a national health plan would cover the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants," NPR reports.

9 Jul 2009

States undergo a variety of health care policy developments

Connecticut: The Associated Press/Hartford Courant reports, "Gov. M. Jodi Rell has vetoed two health insurance bills he said were "well-intentioned" but "would cost the state billions of dollars before any economic recovery is complete."

9 Jul 2009

Nursing shortage leads to more students, new training programs

"Long second shrift to other medical training, nursing education has taken on new relevance as the country faces a drastic shortage of nurses and a thin job market overall," The Dallas Morning News reports.

9 Jul 2009

Obama nominates human genome veteran to lead NIH

Dr. Francis S. Collins, the Yale-educated, guitar-strumming physician and geneticist who led the Human Genome Project, was nominated Wednesday to head the National Institutes of Health, the New York Times reports.

9 Jul 2009

Legislation includes provisions for healthy lifestyle infrastructure

Sweeping healthcare legislation in Congress includes money for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers' markets. While supporters cite their importance for preventative health, critics see the billions of dollars for such provisions in the Senate and House versions as pure pork.

9 Jul 2009

Small business owners deliver mixed messages to Capitol Hill

As more specific legislative language emerges on health care, "small business organizations are encouraging members to make their views known through e-mails, letters, phone calls and personal visits" to members of Congress, but "the message is a decidedly mixed one," Kaiser Health News reports. "Small business, a powerful constituency in every congressional district, no longer speaks with one voice on health care.

9 Jul 2009

Medicare analysis finds too many needless deaths at hospitals

A new Medicare analysis by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found a "double failure" at U.S. hospitals. Its release comes as the White House and Congress seek ways to reward quality over quantity of care in health care reform.

9 Jul 2009

Convent focuses on different approach to end-of-life care

A focus on end-of-life care emphasizes social and spiritual elements over aggressive medical intervention.

9 Jul 2009

World Food Programme appeals for $23 million to help Yemenis women and children

The World Food Programme (WFP) issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday for $23 million in "financial support from international donors for food aid to Yemen specifically targeted at women and children," AFP/Google.com reports.

9 Jul 2009

Obama cabinet members meet Thursday for H1N1 preparedness summit

"The White House, months before flu season, will roll out the big guns Thursday for a swine flu preparedness summit, underscoring the importance the Obama administration is placing on the pandemic," CNN reports.

9 Jul 2009

President Obama to visit Ghana Friday - major policy statement

IRIN reports that Ghanaians "are mixing high hopes with caution" in anticipation of President Obama's arrival in the country Friday – "his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa." Obama is expected to "make a major policy statement," according to IRIN. The article looks back at some of the commitments that former Presidents Bush and Clinton previously made to Africa (7/8).

9 Jul 2009

Global Fund-financed programs reaching more people, report shows

The most recent statistics on programs funded in 140 countries through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria released Wednesday reveal "[m]ore than 2 million people living with HIV have been reached with life-saving treatment," the UN News Centre reports (7/8).

9 Jul 2009

G8 addresses developing nation economic assistance, reforming African aid, establishing farming investment, food security, climate change

Leaders of the world's five biggest developing economies (G5) - Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa - joined the G8 summit on Thursday in an effort to get international financial institutions to use their "multi-billion dollar government bailouts to help developing countries emerge from the economic crisis," AFP/Google.com reports.

9 Jul 2009

Ethicists urge inclusion of pregnant women in Federal child-health study

A team of ethicists from Johns Hopkins, Duke and Georgetown universities is urging organizers of a recently begun $3 billion decades-long study of children's health to immediately add provisions to look at the health and medical profiles of the children's mothers during their pregnancies.

9 Jul 2009

Biden formally announces $155 billion agreement with hospitals

Politico is reporting on its Political Intelligence Blog that Vice President Joe Biden, subbing for President Obama who is at the G-8 economic summit in Italy, formally announced the latest deal with the industry. "The nation's hospitals have tentatively agreed to forego about $155 billion in government payments for Medicaid and Medicare over the next decade -- about 20 percent of the $1 trillion projected to be needed to extend health coverage to about 47 million uninsured Americans."

8 Jul 2009

Hospitals, after agreeing to cuts, push ahead with a full agenda

With the Obama administration's help, hospitals are moving aggressively to resolve their biggest objections to legislative proposals to overhaul the health system.

8 Jul 2009

Emanuel reassures Democrats on public insurance option

"White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reassured House Democrats on Tuesday night that President Barack Obama strongly backs a government-run health insurance plan, seeking to quell a firestorm among liberals upset at Emanuel's comments in the Wall Street Journal that suggested such a plan could be delayed," Roll Call reports.

8 Jul 2009

Health reform legislation will impact preventive and wellness programs

Reuters reports: "Efforts to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system and expand coverage to millions of uninsured could lead some wellness programs to expand and others to constrict, experts say.... In all of the bills in Congress, insurers would be required to cover some preventive services, and all of the bills include prevention and wellness incentives.

8 Jul 2009

Poor working conditions for docs may affect quality of care

"Adverse working conditions for primary care doctors, including time pressures and an unfavorable organizational culture, may lead to stress, burnout, and ultimately to lower quality patient care, a new study found," MedPage Today reports.

8 Jul 2009