Unions are frustrated the Obama administration hasn't responded to their calls for changes to ObamaCare. Labor has watched with growing annoyance as the White House has backed ObamaCare changes in response to concerns from business groups, religious organizations and even lawmakers and their staffs. They say they don't understand why their concerns so far have fallen on deaf ears. "We are disappointed that the non-profit health plans offered by unions have not been given the same consideration as the Catholic Church, big business and Capitol Hill staffers," Unite Here President D. Taylor told The Hill.
Supporters of the U.S. health-care overhaul are criticizing a House panel's scrutiny of nonprofit groups set to help enroll people in new insurance plans, saying it's part of a Republican effort to impede the law. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter Aug. 29 to 51 organizations in 11 states that have been named "navigators" for the health-care law, demanding documents and meetings to account for $67 million in federal grants awarded Aug. 15, said Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who is the panel's top Democrat. The groups were given a Sept. 13 deadline to respond.
Moore's Law predicts that every two years the cost of computing will fall by half. That is why we can be sure that tomorrow's gadgets will be better, and cheaper, too. But in American hospitals and doctors' offices, a very different law seems to hold sway: every 13 years, spending on U.S. health care doubles. Health care accounts for one in five dollars spent in the United States. It's 17.9 percent of the gross domestic product, up from 4 percent in 1950. And technology has been the main driver of this spending: new drugs that cost more, new tests that find more diseases to treat, new surgical implants and techniques.
Left untreated, a serious tooth abscess can eventually kill. In 2007, Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old boy in Maryland, died after bacteria from an abscessed tooth spread to his brain. The case drew widespread media attention, and his is the cautionary tale cited whenever politicians and advocates discuss access to oral health care. But a new study suggests that deaths from these preventable infections may not be as rare as once thought and that the number of Americans hospitalized with them may be on the rise. Studies have shown that dental problems account for hundreds of thousands of emergency room visits each year.
Thursday's announcement that the federal government will give the same tax treatment to legally married same-sex couples as they do to heterosexual couples may have ripple effects for the 2010 health care law. The decision from the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service means that the income of legally married same-sex couples will be considered in determining eligibility for enrollment in the health law's Medicaid expansion and for subsidies to purchase coverage in the law's online marketplaces, or exchanges. The tax ruling applies regardless of whether the couple lives in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage, the agencies said.
When Northern Arizona opens its college football season at the University of Arizona on Friday night, the Lumberjacks' sports medicine team will have a new member: a robot. VGo (pronounced vee-go) is a two-wheeled, remote-controlled, electrically powered robot developed by VGo Communications of New Hampshire that stands 4 feet upright and resembles a miniature Segway. VGo's presence signals the start of a study, conducted jointly by NAU and the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, of whether wireless telecommunication can be used to diagnose concussions in players who might be far away from a trained neurologist.