Recently in Health Care Category

House Minority Leader John Boehner spent his time on the floor tonight before the historic health care vote making petty, useless accusations and used theatrics that were the very antithesis of Obama's inspirational and famous "Yes We Can" chants of the 2008 election.  He accused the Democrats of making back door deals and writing the bill behind closed doors, yadda yadda. He complained an awful lot about the process, but not much about the problems within...

Guest-blogged by Gracie Cavnar.  Original piece appeared on the Houston Chronicle opinion page today, February 21, 2010:First lady Michelle Obama recently announced her sweeping national initiative to combat childhood obesity. For the first time since this epidemic emerged, a comprehensive federal effort will coordinate with nonprofit organizations and the private sector to address the broad spectrum of contributing factors to obesity that together threaten generations of Americans with chronic disease and early death. It's not...

Some people never learn:"De facto Republican Centrist Democratic senators have circumvented party leadership to approach Maine GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins about reviving healthcare talks.Democrats such as Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Max Baucus (Mont.) have approached Snowe within the past week to discuss her potential support for various healthcare proposals....Snowe said Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance panel, approached her in the past week to get her general...

Up 'til now I haven't been a proponent of the "pass something" idea on health care reform legislation, but I think the time has come. It has become such a convoluted mess and such a distraction that it's time to get it off the table and move on to economic issues. Like taking on Wall Street for instance:"President Barack Obama on Thursday is expected to propose new limits on the size and risk taken by...

I hold Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the highest regard because of the good work they do around the world to provide medical care to those in crisis. They are also one of the most effective charity organizations, with administrative costs of only one percent. Please, help them help those who cannot provide for themselves in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Nearly a third of Haiti's population lives in Port-au-Prince. The...

Okay, it's a pathetic attempt to garner some attention via Bobby Flay's popular show, but the challenge is real nonetheless.When you watch the video below, bear in mind that this is a 16-y-o boy who is willing to give up a big chunk of time on a Saturday and who gets nothing in return except quality time with his mom ;-), the undying gratitude of a committed but overburdened staff at the Arthritis Foundation, and...

Stop the presses. President Obama has finally found something he is willing to fight for on health care reform. No, not the public option, but he didn't campaign on that anyway, or so he says. It's the 40% excise tax on benefits. Politico reported yesterday that the president delivered a "forceful" message to House Democrats that he "wants a final bill that includes a tax on Cadillac insurance plans." AP this morning says:"President Barack Obama...

Over the holidays right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh suffered sharp chest pains and was admitted to Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu.  Rush despite his record for clean living (sarcasm intended) did not suffer any real medical emergency and was released a couple of days later.  Upon his release from the hospital, Rush never one to waste an opportunity to look ignorant stated to the press:  "Based on what happened to me here, I don't think...

Ping pong, anyone? With much of the national attention focused on the underpants bomber, the White House, the Senate, and the House are preparing for a game of three-way table tennis, as they work on the final version of the health care reform bill. Well it's not really 3-way, it's the White House and the Senate on one side, and the House on the other. I wonder how that's going to turn out? All this...

Do you ever look at how members of Congress vote on any particular issue, health care reform for example, and wonder, what are they thinking? How can they be so out of touch and out of step with the majority of Americans? This might clear it up for you:"The Center for Responsive Politics released a study which found that, while only one percent of all Americans are millionaires, 44 percent of congressional members [237 out...