As debate over his healthcare overhaul heats up, President Obama is taking off for a family vacation that combines with the challenge of trying to sell his ideas to audiences out West. The president plans to hold town halls in Montana and Colorado to address problems facing the healthcare system and pitch Democratic plans to fix them.
MeritCare of Fargo and Sanford Health of Sioux Falls, SD, plan to serve about 2 million people in five Midwestern states under a planned merger. Leaders of the hospitals faced the general public on for the first time since merger talks began nearly five months ago and repeated promises that no workers would lose their jobs and no services would be cut. They added that the merger should help both hospitals recruit more doctors to the area, including some of the smaller satellite clinics.
Physicians Prompt Care Centers, a suburban Chicago-based doctors' group, announced it will open a clinic inside a Jewel-Osco store that will be staffed by physicians. It's the first retail health clinic in the Chicago area for Jewel-Osco parent Supervalu Inc., which has 14 retail clinics in its stores elsewhere in the country.
Though the number of retail health clinics has grown to more than 1,100 nationally, most are staffed by nurse practitioners. Just a half-dozen clinics are staffed by physicians.
Massachusetts health authorities started deputizing dentists, paramedics, and pharmacists to help administer vaccines against both the seasonal flu and the novel swine strain expected to make a return visit in the fall. In another emergency measure, regulators directed hospitals and clinics to provide vaccine to all their workers and some volunteers, a move designed to keep the medical workforce robust and prevent doctors and nurses from making their patients sick.
In pursuing his proposed overhaul of the healthcare system, President Obama has presented himself as aloof from the legislative fray and merely offering broad principles, according to the New York Times. But behind the scenes, Obama and his advisers have been quite active, sometimes negotiating deals in a manner that is potentially at odds with the president's rhetoric, according to the Times.
Allegations made against Britain's state-funded healthcare service recently by critics of President Obama's proposed healthcare reforms have irked British health officials, who say they are misleading, exaggerated, and sometimes just plain wrong. Hamish Meldrum, the chairman of the British Medical Association, said in a statement that he has been dismayed by the "jaw-droppingly untruthful attacks" by some American critics.