On Capitol Hill, the battle over the healthcare overhaul law has become a kind of scripted political theater. On Wednesday, Republicans in the Senate tried to repeal the law, as expected. Democrats had the votes to beat them, as expected. But now, the legal fight over the law threatens to overshadow the drama that Washington has been rehearsing. Two federal judges have struck at a key provision of the legislation, ruling that Congress can't force individuals to buy health insurance. These cases are almost certainly headed for the Supreme Court, which many predict will decide the law's fate by the spring of 2012. And now, legal experts say, it seems possible that the high court might strike down all or part of the law.
House Republicans are debating whether to propose new limits on the growth of Medicare and other entitlement programs, weighing a gamble that voters are more concerned about trimming the federal deficit than holding on to promised benefits. Some Republicans are warning that the party faces a backlash if it fails to produce a budget that limits entitlement growth, given the anger at federal debt that drove the party's mid-term election gains. Efforts to curb entitlement spending have long been an element of the budget debate, often discussed, but rarely acted on because of their political sensitivity. Rather than aim immediately at entitlements, leaders of the new House Republican majority have focused on fulfilling their promise to cut domestic discretionary spending to 2008 levels, which would require about $100 billion in cuts.
Unprecedented shortages of injectable drugs have forced doctors to resort to medications that are less safe or postpone or cancel procedures, often at the last minute, according to the Food and Drug Administration and healthcare groups. Anesthesiology and oncology have been hit particularly hard. Last month, the only U.S. maker of Pentothal, used for 70 years to induce anesthesia, said it had abandoned plans to resume production, which it had halted a year and a half earlier. The painkiller morphine; amikacin, an antibiotic for serious bacterial infections; and carmustine, a chemotherapy drug, are among about 150 drugs in short supply. Hospital pharmacists and doctors report that patients have deteriorated or died because a drug wasn't available, says pharmacist Michael Cohen, president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. Others, he says, have been harmed by dosing errors stemming from drug substitutions.
Louise Benge's medical problems started when she was 25. Walking became excruciating. Her calves got hard as rocks, and every step was agony. Her hands started hurting too. And the condition, whatever it was, only got worse over the next two decades. Ms. Benge's family doctor in Mount Vernon, Ky., was at a loss, as were a vascular specialist, a hand specialist and a kidney specialist. Her two sisters and two brothers had the problem too, but no doctor could figure out why. Finally, Ms. Benge's family doctor sent her medical history to a detective agency of sorts, the Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the National Institutes of Health. Set up in the spring of 2008, the program relies on teams of specialists who use the most advanced tools of medicine and genomics to try to figure out the causes of diseases that have baffled doctors.
As the Internet continues to play a significant role in the delivery of health information, a study released shows that eight in 10 Internet users look for health information online, making it the third most popular online pursuit after e-mail and using a search engine. The study, conducted jointly by the Pew Internet Project and California HealthCare Foundation, further clarified that since one-quarter of adults do not go online, the percentage of health-information seekers is 59% among the total U.S. adult population.
For-profit hospices may be cherry-picking the least costly, most lucrative patients, potentially putting the nonprofit industry at a financial disadvantage, a study suggests. The researchers found hospice care provided by for-profit agencies averaged 20 days versus 16 days for nonprofit agencies. Care lasting more than one year was most common among for-profit hospice patients. Also, compared with nonprofits, for-profits had about twice as many patients with dementia and fewer cancer patients. End-of-life cancer care is typically much more intensive and costly than dementia care.