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1. Recession Contributes To Slowest Annual Rate Of Increase In Health Spending In Five Decades In 2009, US health care spending grew 4.0 percent—a historically low rate of annual increase—to $2.5 trillion, or $8,086 per person. Despite the slower growth, the share of the gross domestic product devoted to health spending increased to 17.6 percent in 2009 from 16.6 percent in 2008. The growth rate of health spending continued to outpace the growth of the […]...
2. Employers Still Excluding Large Groups of People from Jobs Based on Race, Sex, Age & Disability Experts testified at a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) meeting that employers nationwide continue to discriminate against job seekers based on their race, sex, age, national origin, disability or other prohibited bases. An EEOC trial attorney described the case of two deaf applicants who were denied employment by Walmart because they were deaf. The public can submit written comments by mail […]...
3. Johns Hopkins Researchers Create New Mouse Model Of Autism In an effort to unravel the tangled biology of autism, Johns Hopkins scientists have created a mouse model that mimics a human mutation of a gene known to be associated with autism spectrum disorders. Experiments with the engineered mouse reveal a molecular mechanism by which mutations of the gene named Shank3 affect the brain and […]...
4. After Midterm Elections, Changes Are In Store States’ budget woes continue, and one way many newly elected Republicans would like to address them is to pare back Medicaid. Several different options are already on the table....
5. Rearranging the waiting room chairs Monique Garcia of the Chicago Tribune reports that the Illinois Senate voted 58-0 to enact a series of reforms to the state Medicaid system. As the vote indicates, the reforms are hard to argue with. Unfortunately, as I’ve reported, they do very little to resolve the state’s Medicaid financing crisis — a crisis that can […]...
6. Too big to succeed: the new national security state “The effort to justify its budget often affects the way an agency does business.” That’s how Charles Peters explained the growth of federal bureaucracies in his book How Washington Really Works, a guide to politics and government in the nation’s capital.  Peters’ description is borne out by the Washington Post’s exhaustive series, “Top Secret America,” […]...
7. Roundup: In Oregon, New Gov. Kitzhaber Vows To Change State’s Health Care Delivery System; In Ariz., 2nd Person Denied Transplant Coverage Dies Roundup: In Oregon, New Gov. Kitzhaber Vows To Change State’s Health Care Delivery System; In Ariz., 2nd Person Denied Transplant Coverage Dies...
8. New York Share of Cost, Zegerid OTC Provides Greater And Faster Acid Control Than Prevacid 24HR According To Head-To-Head Clinical Study New York Share of Cost, Zegerid OTC Provides Greater And Faster Acid Control Than Prevacid 24HR According To Head-To-Head Clinical Study: Merck Consumer Care has announced results of a head-to-head clinical study showing that ZEGERID OTC™ offers greater and faster acid control than Prevacid® 24HR. While acid control is an industry standard measure for acid-reducing […]...
9. Federal News Digest Washington Post Pentagon push to phase out top brass causing much consternation – Craig Whitlock reports on Secretary Gates’ effort to reduce number of generals, admirals, he complains of  “brass creep,” sends message that Defense Dept. is serious about cutting costs Oil spill shows difficulty the Coast Guard faces as it balances traditional tasks with […]...
10. Projecting The Impact Of The Affordable Care Act On California The Affordable Care Act is the most fundamental legislative transformation of the US health care system in forty years. This analysis estimates that the act will provide health insurance for an additional 3.4 million people in California in 2016. This will mean that nearly 96 percent of documented residents of California under age sixty-five will be insured. […]...
11. Reuters Examines Foreign Aid’s Prospects In New Congress; Foreign Policy Looks At Clinton’s State Dept. Staff Memo Reuters examines how the efforts of “budget-minded lawmakers [in the new U.S. Congress who will] seek to curb costs without undercutting military operations” could impact U.S.-backed aid programs, including those in Afghanistan....
12. California’s Role In Ensuring That The Potential Of Health Reform Becomes Reality The fifty states will play a critical role in implementing the Affordable Care Act, and California is one of the states at the forefront of reform. The act can provide coverage to millions of currently uninsured Californians and offers important benefits in terms of more-affordable coverage, improved access to services, and better health outcomes. As […]...
13. Eliminating wasteful federal spending Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act with my strong support, and the measure has now been signed into law. The legislation is designed to identify and eliminate improper payments from federal agency spending and recover the lost funds that agencies have misspent....
14. Daley could lend voice to oft-ignored rich, connected Chicagoans Barack Obama named William Daley his new Chief of Staff yesterday. While Daley has held many titles — like Commerce Secretary for Bill Clinton — he is arguably best known, at least in Chicago, as brother and son of Richard M. Daley and Richard J. Daley, who have combined to serve as Chicago’s Mayor for […]...
15. Proving the Asian carp threat Here is the most powerful evidence yet that Asian carp will invade the Great Lakes unless the Army Corps of Engineers takes action.  Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel reports that scientists who found carp DNA in the Chicago canal system, a few miles off of Lake Michigan, had their work approvingly peer-reviewed by the […]...