Obama: Health Care Reform Will Impact All Americans
from CBS News
 At the health care town hall meeting he held Wednesday at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va., Obama comforted a tearful questioner who was diagnosed with a second tumor in her kidney, causing her renal failure. She had no way to pay for health care. "Debby is a perfect example of somebody, in a country this wealthy, we should be able to provide coverage for her health care problems," Mr. Obama said, after hugging Smith. "What we don't want is a situation where Debby gets worse and worse because she's not getting treatment and then goes to the emergency room," raising costs for all taxpayers. Health care reform will impact every American, the president said. More 
Hospital Business Bad, Too, CEOs Say
from The Telegraph
After 30 years in the business, Tom Wilhelmsen thought health care was one of those “recession-proof” industries. That is until 2008, when he started to notice some unexpected changes in the books. And Wilhelmsen is not the only hospital executive who detected a shift last year in an industry that has traditionally been strong even in shaky times. More
Even After Death, Heart Attack Treatment May Not End
from Forbes
Chances of surviving a heart attack that occurs outside of a hospital are slim, but paramedics often take people who have died to a hospital anyway because a variety of factors keep them from following recommended guidelines, a new study finds. In the United States, paramedics treat almost 300,000 people with cardiac arrest each year. But despite what's portrayed on TV, fewer than 8 percent survive, according to the American Heart Association.
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Survey: Use of Health Savings Accounts Growing
from Fierce Healthcare
A new survey suggests that health savings accounts are becoming increasingly popular, with the number of accounts and level of assets rising steadily. A new study from Celent reported that the number of HSAs increased 46.1 percent between January 2008 and January 2009, and their asset base grew by 62.6 percent.
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FDA Panel Calls for Lower Dosages of Acetaminophen
from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Government experts called for sweeping safety restrictions Tuesday on the most widely used painkiller, including reducing the maximum dose of Tylenol and eliminating prescription drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet. The Food and Drug Administration assembled 37 experts to recommend ways to reduce deadly overdoses with acetaminophen, which is the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S. and sends 56,000 people to the emergency room annually.
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Access-to-care Problems are Resurfacing in Massachusetts
from American Medical News
Massachusetts' Commonwealth Connector health reforms have reduced the state's uninsured population to less than 3 percent of residents, the lowest among all states. But a recent survey found an uptick last fall in adults reporting difficulty accessing certain types of care. The outcome of the Massachusetts health system reforms has national implications.
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Illinois Hospitals Developing New Procedures for Strokes
from The News-Gazette
Doctors know how important it is for someone who's suffered a stroke to get speedy treatment. Now Illinois hospitals that are prepared to offer the best and fastest care to stroke patients are being joined in a new network of primary stroke centers, and other hospitals throughout the state are being encouraged to join them.
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Groups Back Comparative-effectiveness Legislation
from Modern Healthcare
Major medical organizations are urging health committees in the House and Senate to make comparative-effectiveness research a key component of health care reform. Comparative effectiveness was a subject of contention during negotiations on health care reform legislation last week in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The bill’s plans for a new federal center on health outcomes research was seen by some GOP members as a possible means to ration health care.
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Fraud May Account for Up to 10 Percent of Health Care Spending
from Health Leaders Media
While the federal government has been involved in many high-profile fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid cases this year, some of the more striking examples of fraud are occurring within the private insurance industry, according to a new report from The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services in Washington, D.C.
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The Emergency Department Practice Management Association
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