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Berwick to testify for the first time as Medicare/Medicaid chief

Medicare and Medicaid chief Donald Berwick will testify before a congressional committee Wednesday for the first time since President Barack Obama avoided the Senate confirmation process to Republican protest by using a recess appointment to install Berwick as the administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

17 Nov 2010

Changes to flexible spending accounts; High co-pays prompt abandoned prescriptions

Minnesota Public Radio: "[T]he federal health care reform law is cutting back on what [flexible spending] accounts will cover and how much workers can put into them. … These two changes are designed to raise more tax revenue to help pay for insuring another 32 million Americans beginning in 2014.

16 Nov 2010

Nevada AG files antitrust lawsuit against health care merger

The Associated Press/KLAS-TV in Las Vegas: "The Nevada attorney general's office has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against a $3.1 billion health care merger it says would reduce competition for psychiatric care in Las Vegas. ... The lawsuit is aimed at a proposed merger between Universal Health Services Inc. and Psychiatric Solutions Inc."

16 Nov 2010

Republicans confront realities of health overhaul, position themselves in Congress

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the health overhaul is resting in the GOP's crosshairs. The ultimate defense to the repeal effort is the presidential veto pen. Even with a new majority in the House come January, Republicans concede that winning a repeal vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely and the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto, well out of reach.

16 Nov 2010

Omron supports American Heart Association's educational initiatives for hypertension treatment

Omron Healthcare today announced support for the American Heart Association's broad-based healthcare awareness campaign that will educate providers on hypertension treatment recommendations, including home blood pressure monitoring and best practices for integrating this into their standard of care.

16 Nov 2010

Reuters reports on PLoS medicine series on water, sanitation

Nearly 20 percent of the world's population still defecates in the open, and action to improve hygiene, sanitation and water supply could prevent more than 2 million child deaths a year, health experts said" on Monday, following the release of a series of papers on water and sanitation published in the journal PLoS Medicine, Reuters reports.

16 Nov 2010

States seek ways to balance Medicaid budget, contemplate dropping out of program

Kaiser Health News: "As budget-weary state officials contemplate dropping out of the state-federal Medicaid program, a potentially game-changing question has arisen in Washington: Would poor people who lose Medicaid be eligible for subsidies to buy private coverage in an insurance exchange beginning in 2014? Cindy Mann, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, last week said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was considering the question.

16 Nov 2010

Insuring your health: Many individual health policies do not cover pregnancy

In her latest Kaiser Health News consumer column, Michelle Andrews writes: "Individual health insurance policies generally don't cover maternity care, as a recent investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce reported.

16 Nov 2010

KHN column: Health care – tell us the truth before you tell us why you are right

We need more proposals like those being made by the President's deficit reduction commission, and the Medicare reform proposal authored by Republican House members Ryan, Cantor, and McCarthy. Irrespective of whether they are the best proposals, their authors started from a place where they told the truth.

16 Nov 2010

Today's Op-Eds: Congress needs conservative leadership; reviving tort reform; can states afford to drop Medicaid?

Nothing has gone quite so awry as the massive, government-run Obama health program, and it is plain that the individual mandate, the employee mandate, the abortion funding, the tangle of outsider/insider councils like the comparative effectiveness board and the effective nationalization of healthcare under grants of authority to the Department of Health and Human Services.

16 Nov 2010

Hospital upgrades: Promises to keep

The Victorian Coalition has announced hospital upgrades around the state and softened its opposition of the national health agreement.

16 Nov 2010

BUSM professor wins 2010 Maurice Wood Award for Lifetime Contribution to Primary Care Research

Larry Culpepper, MD, MPH, chair and professor of family medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and chief of family medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC), is the recipient of the 2010 Maurice Wood Award for Lifetime Contribution to Primary Care Research.

16 Nov 2010

Study confirms healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health

Two large studies from Northwestern Medicine confirm a healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health. One study shows the majority of people who adopted healthy lifestyle behaviors in young adulthood maintained a low cardiovascular risk profile in middle age.

16 Nov 2010

HUPTI's first group of patients complete prostate cancer treatment

The Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute's first group of patients completed their course of treatment for prostate cancer.

16 Nov 2010

Stanford Hospital offers iPads to enhance patient experience

Instead of television, Stanford Hospital is offering some patients a more high-tech form of entertainment, iPads. As part of a pilot program, the hospital has outfitted its catheterization and angiography laboratory with five of the tablet computers. They've been loaded with movies, books and games. They can also connect to the Internet through the hospital's wireless network.

16 Nov 2010

Lancet World Report details new U.S. Global Development Policy, Global Health community's reaction

Lancet World Report examines elements of President Barack Obama's U.S. Global Development Policy strategy that he unveiled during the U.N. summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in September.

16 Nov 2010

Employees' perks for healthy behavior will increase next year

Employers plan to further reward workers for healthy behavior such as quitting smoking or losing weight with lower insurance premiums or cash prizes, the Los Angeles Times reports.

16 Nov 2010

Employees will see changes in 2011 health benefits

"Workers who have received their annual enrollment packets for insurance benefits" should expect slight changes to their plans this year due to the health care overhaul. Most employees can expect to pay more next year, due in part to the 1 to 2 percent increase in insurance costs brought about by the law.

16 Nov 2010

As Congress heads into lame-duck, repeal of 1099 reporting provision likely

Heading into a lame-duck session, "Congress has several other items left on its docket. … there's a rewrite of the 1099 tax reporting requirements under the health care bill, which presently require businesses to report every expense over $600.

16 Nov 2010

Medicare open enrollment period starts today

Coming changes to Medicare will benefit some recipients but will make coverage more expensive for people with higher incomes. Thanks in part to this year's health care overhaul, everything from benefits and enrollment rules to the number of choices available will be affected beginning Jan. 1.

16 Nov 2010

Healthcare News

Berwick to testify for the first time as Medicare/Medicaid chief

Changes to flexible spending accounts; High co-pays prompt abandoned prescriptions

Nevada AG files antitrust lawsuit against health care merger

Republicans confront realities of health overhaul, position themselves in Congress

Omron supports American Heart Association's educational initiatives for hypertension treatment

Reuters reports on PLoS medicine series on water, sanitation

States seek ways to balance Medicaid budget, contemplate dropping out of program

Insuring your health: Many individual health policies do not cover pregnancy

KHN column: Health care – tell us the truth before you tell us why you are right

Today's Op-Eds: Congress needs conservative leadership; reviving tort reform; can states afford to drop Medicaid?

Hospital upgrades: Promises to keep

BUSM professor wins 2010 Maurice Wood Award for Lifetime Contribution to Primary Care Research

Study confirms healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health

HUPTI's first group of patients complete prostate cancer treatment

Stanford Hospital offers iPads to enhance patient experience

Lancet World Report details new U.S. Global Development Policy, Global Health community's reaction

Employees' perks for healthy behavior will increase next year

Employees will see changes in 2011 health benefits

As Congress heads into lame-duck, repeal of 1099 reporting provision likely

Medicare open enrollment period starts today

How agentic AI is reshaping laboratory workflows

Fourier 80: bringing benchtop NMR systems to the laboratory

How industrial hygiene flow calibration supports defensible exposure data

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