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Leavitt promotes 'four cornerstones' initiative in Wisconsin

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Wednesday in a speech to Milwaukee-area business and health system leaders promoted the Bush administration's Value-Driven Health Care Initiative, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

11 Mar 2007

House subcommittees hold hearing on stopping Medicare fraud

The House Ways and Means Oversight and Health subcommittees on Thursday held a joint hearing on Medicare fraud, with lawmakers estimating that as much as 50% of the $10.8 billion in Medicare overpayments in 2006 were the result of fraud, CQ HealthBeat reports.

11 Mar 2007

New Jersey hospital launches program encouraging expectant couples to bank adult stem cells

Livingston, New Jersey-based Saint Barnabas Medical Center officials on Tuesday announced that the clinic has partnered with LifebankUSA to launch a program devoted to encouraging expectant couples to bank both umbilical cord blood and placental stem cells, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.

11 Mar 2007

More synergy in public health between Methodist-Houston and Weill Cornell

A noted authority in health services research, critical care and geriatric medicine, Dr. Marc D. Silverstein has been appointed chairman of a newly created Department of Public Health at The Methodist Hospital in Houston.

11 Mar 2007

Junior doctors call for immediate inquiry into training chaos

Junior doctors' leaders have voted overwhelmingly for the scrapping of the Government's new system for medical training appointments - known as MTAS and a return to the old appointments system for junior doctors which was in place until earlier this year.

11 Mar 2007

PAHO, Canada sign agreement to advance health programs

The Pan American Health Organization and the Government of Canada today signed a four-year agreement to support international health work in the Americas.

8 Mar 2007

High-deductible health plans could lead to less preventive care

High-deductible health plans could lead people -- especially children in low-income families -- to forgo or delay health care, according to a policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics published on Monday in Pediatrics, Reuters reports.

8 Mar 2007

Congressional hearings begin for Walter Reed Army Medical Center

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on Monday held a hearing to address concerns about quality of care and living conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, during which Army officials "acknowledg[ed] ... that they have failed in the care of wounded veterans," the Los Angeles Times reports.

8 Mar 2007

HCA posts cost of services for uninsured online

Tennessee-based hospital chain HCA on Friday began posting the prices of services for the uninsured at its hospitals in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, according to spokesperson Ed Fishbough, the Tennessean reports.

8 Mar 2007

Baucus to draft new legislation that would allow small business health insurance pools

Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is working on new legislation that would permit small businesses to jointly negotiate health plan rates and also give them tax incentives for offering employees coverage, according to a Democratic aide to the committee, CongressDaily reports.

8 Mar 2007

Spitzer says $575 million budget surplus might go toward health care, reserves

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) during a news conference on Monday said that some of the additional $575 million in state revenue expected next year likely will be spent on health care and placed in reserves, the Albany Times-Union reports.

8 Mar 2007

Blagojevich proposes health coverage expansion

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) on Sunday unveiled a plan to expand access to health insurance to the 1.4 million uninsured state residents at an estimated cost of $2.1 billion per year, the Chicago Tribune reports.

8 Mar 2007

President Bush appoints Dole, Shalala to lead panel examining veterans' care

President Bush during a speech before the American Legion on Tuesday named former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala as co-chairs of a commission that will examine the care that wounded veterans receive after they return from war, both at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and at other military hospitals across the nation, the Washington Post reports

8 Mar 2007

BMA says review of flawed recruitment process welcome but does not go far enough

Britain's Department of Health has announced a review of the Medical Training Application Service for junior doctors.

6 Mar 2007

For healthier patients, create happier doctors

Rochester doctors are putting to the test the idea that less stressed, more fulfilled physicians offer improved care to their patients.

6 Mar 2007

Patients need doctors to advise them on health care decisions

"Sick people need to be able to rely on their doctors not just for an expert recital of choices" when it comes to medical treatment, "but also for advice about what to do, and doctors should accept responsibility for the outcome," Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and guest columnist for the Boston Globe, writes in an opinion piece.

5 Mar 2007

Call for decent, sanitary housing for recuperating soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center

The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) has called upon Defense Secretary Robert Gates to take immediate action to provide decent, sanitary housing for recuperating soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and to consider moving them to Department of Veterans Affairs facilities closer to their homes.

5 Mar 2007

NYT examines 'gray market' for in-home long-term care aides

Many middle-class families facing the "crushing burden of indefinite home-care expenses" have begun to hire in-home long-term care aides through the "gray market," an "over-the-back-fence network of women," although the practice "is fraught with risks," the New York Times reports.

4 Mar 2007

Bush's health care proposal would increase tax revenues by $526 billion through 2017

President Bush's health insurance proposals for the tax code would increase tax revenues by $526 billion through 2017, according to a preliminary estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation that "is stunningly different from the administration's estimates as well as those from other independent analysts," the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports.

4 Mar 2007

HHS Secretary proposes creating local health care collaborative to provide cost, quality reports of health care providers

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Wednesday at a breakfast with reporters announced a new proposal to establish local collaboratives to provide public reports on the cost and quality of health care providers as part of an effort to increase health care transparency, CQ HealthBeat reports.

4 Mar 2007