Americans who have lost their job since September 2008 and are paying to extend your company-sponsored health insurance under a law called COBRA,
confirm what you already know: The payments are killing you. In 41 states, according to a recent
, average COBRA payments amounted to more than three-quarters of those states’ average unemployment benefits.
But according to the fine print of the stimulus bill being hammered out between the U.S. Senate Read the rest of this entry »

Congress Reaches Deal On Stimulus That Includes $90B For Medicaid, $19B For Health IT
The House and Senate on Wednesday reached an agreement on a $789.5 billion economic recovery package that includes billions in funding for state Medicaid programs and health information technology, the
reports. According to the
, the deal “all but clinches passage” of the stimulus plan, with both chambers expected to quickly finalize its approval (Hitt/Weisman,
Read the rest of this entry »

To be honest, the $800-plus billion economic stimulus package being debated by Congress has stimulated plenty in me.
Dread. Anxiety. And yes, fear itself.
I mean, $800 billion, or maybe $900 billion? Why not make it an even trillion? It’s not like we actually have the money anyway. (And no, it’s not true that once President Barack Obama’s Cabinet nominees pay their taxes, we’ll have it covered.)
The package is an unwieldy plan to build and repair Read the rest of this entry »

Plan includes obesity tax on non-diet drinks, sodas
(12/16/08) — Governor David Paterson will present a budget to the legislature on Tuesday, featuring billions of dollars in new taxes.
Governor Paterson ’s proposed budget will take aim at the state’s public schools. In New York City Paterson plans to slice a whopping $206-million from the school system.
Governor David Paterson “doom and gloom” budget includes billions of dollars in new taxes. Read the rest of this entry »

for protecting against vaginal and vulvar cancers caused by
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18 in girls and women aged from 9 to 26. The agency announced its decision to the press on Friday 12th September, in
a FDA News page on its website.
Director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr Jesse L Goodman said:
“There is now strong evidence showing that this vaccine can help prevent vulvar and vaginal cancers due Read the rest of this entry »

To be honest, the $800-plus billion economic stimulus package being debated by Congress has stimulated plenty in me.
Dread. Anxiety. And yes, fear itself.
I mean, $800 billion, or maybe $900 billion? Why not make it an even trillion? It’s not like we actually have the money anyway. (And no, it’s not true that once President Barack Obama’s Cabinet nominees pay their taxes, we’ll have it covered.)
The package is an unwieldy plan to build and repair Read the rest of this entry »

by the FDA revealed potential risks of heart and blood disorders associated with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka’s schizophrenia drug Abilify. Abilify (aripiprazole) was associated with problems including torsades de pointes (a form of abnormally fast heart rate), hepatotoxicity and blood disorders called dyscrasias, according to a review the FDA conducted as part of its pilot Post-Marketing Safety Evaluation of New Molecular Entities program. Read the rest of this entry »

that President Obama signed today is $1.1 billion in federal funding to investigate how different treatments stack up against each other. The money will likely go to comparing drugs, devices and medical procedures, in an effort guided by a
.
The stimulus bill doesn’t direct the 15-member council to dictate coverage. But the
between three federal agencies: the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institutes of Health Read the rest of this entry »

) that would extend coverage to about four million additional children and also allow states to extend public health benefits to some immigrant pregnant women, the
reports. Seven million children currently are enrolled in SCHIP, which provides health insurance benefits to children in families with incomes at or near the federal poverty level who do not qualify for Medicaid. The bill would be funded primarily through a 61-cent-per-pack increase in Read the rest of this entry »

When she became pregnant, her grandmother offered to buy her a car if she would have an
. Other relatives told her the baby would not live to see its first birthday. She was 22, unmarried and had already been hospitalized several times for
.
She gave birth to a boy, and when he was 1 week old, the young woman, who spoke on the condition that she not be named, brought him to a pediatric practice at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Read the rest of this entry »