Word: reformator
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Health care reform legislation cleared an important hurdle on Nov. 21, when the U.S. Senate voted to open full debate on a proposed 10-year, $848 billion overhaul of the industry. Democrats relied on a coalition of centrists and liberals to advance the measure with a filibuster-proof 60-to-39 vote; all the nays came from Republicans. Maintaining the fragile Democratic alliance could mean weeks of legislative haggling and debate: four key moderate Senators oppose the inclusion of a public-insurance option, which some colleagues on the left consider nonnegotiable. A final vote is probably a month or more...
...instead of 40, as the panel advised in 2002). The task force cited enhanced analysis of the risks and benefits of screening as the reason for the new guidelines. But the recommendations went straight to the heart of the emotionally charged debate over the Democratic-sponsored health care reform legislation that is working its way through Congress. Republicans like Representative Marsha Blackburn charged that "this is how rationing begins. This is the little toe in the edge of the water." No one was more surprised, or less prepared, for the uproar over the new guidelines than the advisory panel itself...
...testing in older women. Doctors are also questioning the usefulness of prostate-cancer screening among otherwise healthy middle-aged men, as studies begin to show that the test, which has many risks, may not necessarily lead to fewer deaths from the usually slow-growing cancer. The Senate health reform bill currently being debated would also rely on the task-force guidelines to determine what preventive medical services private insurers would be required to cover at no cost to patients. In a sign of how contentious evidence-based approaches may become, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius quickly...
That calculus is precisely what drives comparative-effectiveness research, a strategy embraced by both the House and Senate health care reform bills: figuring out which tests and treatments work best--instead of using every available treatment just because it's there--while saving money without adversely affecting health. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to screen for breast cancer, for example, isn't necessary for the vast majority of women who are at low risk of the disease; because most tumors are not aggressive, most women will not benefit from finding the first signs of tiny tumors that...
...reach out to ordinary South Africans. New Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has spent nights in poor townships across the country to hear residents' concerns. Zuma himself has established a hotline to the presidency and in August gathered hundreds of school principals in Durban to answer their questions on reform. The same month, in the first of what he promises will be a series of surprise presidential inspections, he caught the mayor of the northern town of Balfour playing hooky. (See Jacob Zuma's profile in the 2008 TIME...