FDA shouldn’t cave to pressure and allow Genentech to keep advanced metastatic breast cancer on the Avastin label, argues Merrill Goozner.
Bed bug summit in Seattle. New York Times reporters discuss possible impact of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death on the health-care debate.
By Phil Galewitz
July 24, 2009
While a cornerstone of President Obama’s plan to trim medical costs – an independent commission to determine how much Medicare pays doctors and hospitals – has run into strong opposition from powerful industry groups, certain hospital systems are breaking ranks and supporting it.
Many are these are so-called “model” systems, such as the [...]
By Eric Pianin and Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News
A major Senate health reform bill would cost the federal government $1 trillion over the coming decade while reducing the number of uninsured Americans by a net of only 16 million, according to a preliminary analysis released yesterday.
President Obama and congressional Democratic leaders are pressing for passage of [...]
President Barack Obama’s Remarks at the American Medical Association Annual Meeting in Chicago
As Released By The White House, June 15, 2009
From the moment I took office as President, the central challenge we have confronted as a nation has been the need to lift ourselves out of the worst recession since World War II. In recent [...]
By Jenny Gold of Kaiser Health News
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., recently introduced the idea of non-profit insurance cooperatives as an alternative to a government-sponsored public insurance option in Democratic proposals to overhaul the nation’s health care system.
Many Republicans and health insurers oppose the idea of a government-run approach, charging that it will be an unfair [...]
In his weekly address, President Barack Obama said $313 billion in savings will make it possible to reform health-care without driving up the deficit.
“These savings will come from commonsense changes,” Mr. Obama said, “For example – if more Americans are insured, we can cut payments that help hospitals treat patients without health insurance. If the [...]
Kaiser Health News Report
By Mary Agnes Carey and Eric Pianin
JUN 11, 2009
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and other Democratic leaders are targeting more than a dozen moderate and conservative Republicans as they pursue a bipartisan deal to extend health care coverage to nearly 46 million uninsured Americans.
Baucus signaled his willingness yesterday to compromise on [...]
AMA comes out against public insurance plan
The American Medical Association says it will oppose the creation of a government-sponsored health insurance plan that President Barack Obama and many Democrats see as essential for health-care reform, writes reporter Robert Pear in today’s New York Times:
“…in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association [...]
Should you go overseas for medical care?
Thousands of Americans now go abroad for medical care. The price is right: well-regarded hospitals in India, for example, can charge 60 percent to 90 percent less than a U.S. facility for the same service.
Most Americans go overseas for cosmetic surgery like facelifts and liposuction but an increasing number [...]
Facing a 43 percent budget cut, Washington state’s Basic Health, a state-subsidized health insurance plan for the working poor, will raise rates rather than drop enrollees, the Washington Health Care Authority announced today.
Under one scenario that was under consideration to cope with the budget cuts, as many as 40,000 of the just under 100,000 enrollees [...]
Obama to play greater role in crafting health reform package
To date, President Barack Obama has by and large left the details of health care reform legislation to Congress, but no longer, reports Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the Sunday New York Times.
Stolberg writes:
“…Mr. Obama has grown concerned that he is losing the debate over certain policy prescriptions he [...]
Ultimately, U.S. health care reform will be a compromise that will leave many activists, both on the left or the right, unsatisfied, writes Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, in this column.
“In the end, however, if legislation passes, the American people will not think about it as liberal, or centrist, or [...]
Hospitals lobby against proposed charity care rules
The American Hospital Association has sent out a bulletin urging its members to press Congress not to pass legislation that would require hospitals to provide a minimal level of charitable care as a condition for keeping their tax-exempt status, New York Times reporter Robert Pear writes.
“A formulaic, one-size-fits-all charity [...]
Washington must cut 36,000 from its basic health plan
Seattle Times health reporter Kyung Song writes in today’s paper about options state officials are considering on how to cut 36,000 enrollees from the state’s Basic Health Plan.
Currently, the plan provides health coverage to 100,000 low-income state residents, but because of the state’s revenue shortfall, the number [...]
The battle over health-care reform has taken to the airwaves, reporters at New York Times and the Wall Street Journal write in today’s papers.
Health Care for America Now, a group that wants Congress to pass comprehensive health reform that guarantees universal coverage, is running ads that push for a public insurance plan to compete with [...]
U.S. Senator Patty Murray and U.S. Representative Jim McDermott will address rallies for health-care reform in Seattle, Saturday, May 30.
Organizers predict more than 5,000 people will attend the Health Care for All in 2009 march and rally, which will begin at 12:30 p.m. at Edwin Pratt Park (20th Ave. S & E. Yesler Way) in [...]
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and other Democrats have proposed creating a federally backed insurance plan to compete with private insurance plans.
Anyone could buy insurance from the public plan and no one could be excluded because of pre-exisiting conditions, proponents say.
According to a recent survey by the magazine Consumer Reports, 66 percent of [...]
In surveys, what the public says is wrong with the U.S. health system often doesn’t line up with what the experts say is wrong.
“They don’t disagree on everything, far from it.” writes Dr Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation in today’s column.
“But there is a wide gulf on basic beliefs about what [...]
Google wants to know why users search for health-related information
Google wants to know what you have in mind when you’re searching for health information.
Do you want to know about a headache because you have one or are you just interested?
To find out, Google has is inviting users to participate in a new survey.
An invitation to [...]
Shortage of lab workers could threaten health system
The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Landro reports that health experts are worried about a growing shortage of medical lab professionals.
Landro writes:
“Like the growing shortages of primary-care doctors and nurses, the shrinking ranks of skilled lab workers pose a potential threat to the safety and quality of health care, [...]
How serious is the health industry’s vow to cut costs?
Yesterday, industry executives representing doctors, drug and medical device makers, hospitals and insurers as well as health-service workers met with President Barack Obama and promised to slow the rise of health costs.
If these promised savings were to be realized, it is estimated it would save $2 [...]
Health care industry says it can control soaring costs
Representatives of doctors, drug makers, insurers and health-care unions met with President Barack Obama Monday and promised that they could control health-care costs, saving the average family of four $2,500 a year in five years and the nation $2 trillion in ten years
In a letter to the [...]
Healthcare reform expected to boost company wellness programs
New York Times reporter Robert Pear writes today that Congress is planning ”to give employers sweeping new authority to reward employees for healthy behavior, including better diet, more exercise, weight loss and smoking cessation.”
Currently “a web of federal rules limits what employers and insurers can do now,” Pear writes.
Supporters say employer wellness [...]
Six in ten Americans have delayed or skipped receiving medical care because of concerns about costs, a new survey has found.
The survey, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that four in ten of those survey reported they had relied on home remedies or over-the-counter non-prescription drugs rather than going to see a doctor.
One in [...]
Nationwide, one in five U.S. workers lacks health insurance, according to a new report by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Overall, 45.7 million Americans, 22% of men and 18% of women, are now uninsured, the study found.
The report—At the Brink: Trends in America’s Uninsured—compared average health insurance rates from 1994-1996 and with average figures from 2006-2007.
During that [...]
Do you think healthcare reform leave you better off—or worse off?
How you and other Americans answer that question may decide the fate of healthcare reform effort now underway in Washington, D.C., argues Dr Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, in this column.
In a recent survey conducted by the Foundation, 38 percent of [...]
More than half of Americans (53 percent) say their households have has cut back on health care spending due to high costs, according to a new survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
To save money, 35 percent they reported they had relied on home remedies and over-the-counter drugs rather than going to see a doctor; [...]
Invisible Families: The homeless you don't see
They squeeze in with relatives, couch surf with friends or camp out in cars. More families are quietly becoming homeless, driven to the edge by a lack of jobs and affordable housing. The Seattle Times and its local news partners tackle the topic together. Project home
E-Health Records: Seattle is ahead of the curve
Health News from the Seattle Times
