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Patients may not benefit from e-samples of prescription drugs, says UW

Search the Internet to learn about your asthma, high cholesterol or other common disorder, and odds are you'll be directed to a pharmaceutical company-sponsored Web homepage. There you'll often find an offer for a free sample or a one-time discount on a top-selling prescription medication.

25 Nov 2009

Cinergy Health concerned about unemployed Americans' health insurance

Daniel Touizer, CEO of Cinergy Health, a nationwide provider of guaranteed issue health insurance benefit programs, is concerned that the labor department's recently released U-6 number means nearly one in five Americans are without a full-time job and unlikely to have health insurance.

25 Nov 2009

Global Fund approves 'in principle' $47M grant for reducing spread of HIV among MSM, transgender in South Asia

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has approved, "in principle," a $47 million grant to reduce the spread of HIV among gay and other men who have sex with men in seven south Asian countries, IANS/Thaindian.com reports. According to a statement IANS/Thaindian.com reports was released by the Global Fund, in New Delhi, "This [project] marks the first time, the Global Fund will support a major regional project in Asia specifically addressing men who have sex with men (MSM), transgenders and HIV."

25 Nov 2009

Kansas City to host nation's largest free health clinic for uninsured people

The Bartle Hall Convention Center will temporarily become the nation's largest medical clinic on Dec. 9-10, when Kansas City hosts the latest in a series of massive free clinics for uninsured people.

25 Nov 2009

Obama issues joint statement with Indian Prime Minister Singh, includes health, agriculture collaboration

President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "agreed Tuesday to team up and tackle a checklist of economic, nuclear, security and environmental challenges" as well as collaborate on health and agriculture issues, CNN reports.

25 Nov 2009

WHO investigates cases of H1N1 drug resistance in U.S., Britain

The WHO is looking into reports that patients with "severely suppressed immune systems" in Britain and the U.S. developed resistance Tamiflu, which is used to treat the symptoms of H1N1 (swine flu), a spokesman for the organization said Tuesday, Reuters reports.

25 Nov 2009

Agfa HealthCare establishes a healthcare technology institute in Canada

Agfa HealthCare, a leading provider of IT-enabled clinical workflow and diagnostic imaging solutions, today introduced the Agfa HealthCare Institute - a new initiative leveraging collaborative partnerships with world-class vendors, academic institutions, government and healthcare providers throughout North America to help facilitate innovation in the healthcare technology space.

25 Nov 2009

Senators away for holiday continue health debate at home

Senators away for the Thanksgiving holiday are continuing the health care reform debate with constituents and are facing far less vitriol than during the August recess.

25 Nov 2009

Massachusetts lawsuit on part-timers and health care, Utahns satisfied with insurance

News outlets report on a health care lawsuit in Massachusetts, a tobacco tax in Colorado and health plan ratings in Utah.

25 Nov 2009

Today's opinions and editorials

You would be hard pressed to find any health policy expert who isn't disappointed that cost containment has fallen off the health care "reform" express (Robert Laszewski, 11/25).

25 Nov 2009

Lobbyists – including some surprise players – keep the heat on health legislation

Washington groups have lobbied Congress and the public in nearly every imaginable direction on health reform. But those groups include a few that you may not have guessed would have an interest.

25 Nov 2009

Experts call for greater crackdown on Medicare fraud

Efforts to crack down on Medicare fraud heat up while some experts say more should be done.

25 Nov 2009

Data miners can inform drug companies of doctors' prescribing habits

The Baltimore Sun reports: "[P]harmaceutical companies that make … prescription drugs are also looking over the doctor's shoulder, keeping track of how many prescriptions for whose drugs the individual physician is writing."

25 Nov 2009

Health reform financing ideas watered down, questions remain on premiums, taxes

The New York Times reports that while the Senate health bill "includes nearly every big idea that health economists and medical researchers have for slowing cost growth — as well as for improving the patchwork quality of American health care, ... many of the ideas, like the rule on Medicare reimbursement, have been at least partly neutered. A provision to punish hospitals for infecting their patients, for example, would cut payments for the related treatments by a mere 1 percent.

25 Nov 2009

Health companies' momentum may cut right through reform savings

Health companies have done better than the rest of corporate America during the past decade, MarketWatch/Seattle Times reports. While profits at the S&P 500 companies declined slightly over 10 years, "[d]ata compiled by MarketWatch show that the 52 health-care companies in the index are about to close out the decade with average profits that nearly tripled."

25 Nov 2009

7 tips on cutting medical bills

Research into medical billing has revealed that it is possible to drastically and immediately cut medical expenses not covered by medical insurance plans. www.BestHealthcareRates.com, a knowledgeable leader in the online medical insurance field, has collected the 7 best tips to help individuals pay off medical bills quicker by first reducing them to more manageable levels.

25 Nov 2009

Fact checks examine various health care reform claims

The Christian Science Monitor reports on four key issues - a public option, raising taxes and cutting costs, individual mandates and abortion - that may become points of major differences when expected debate begins Nov. 30 on the Senate bill. The Monitor examines how each issue is covered in both the House and the Senate bills (Chaddock, 11/24).

25 Nov 2009

Senate Health Committee likely to hold hearing on new mammogram guidelines

Roll Call reports that 22 senators have written the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee asking its leaders to hold hearings on controversial new mammogram guidelines. "The letter came less than a week after the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended looser guidelines for breast cancer screenings. The task force suggested that women wait until they turn 50 to begin screening and then undergo one mammogram every two years instead of every year."

25 Nov 2009

Merge Healthcare, Insite One expand their contract to provide a universal viewing solution for archiving services

Merge Healthcare, announced today that InSite One, a leading service provider of medical data archiving, storage, and disaster-recovery solutions, has expanded its contract with Merge to provide a universal viewing solution for their InDex® archiving services.

25 Nov 2009