Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — Senate Democrats, trying to round up 60 votes for health-care legislation, face new challenges to their goal of passing a bill by Christmas as they confront both Republican stalling tactics and other pressing business.

Read the original here:
Health-Care Deadline Challenged by Republican Stalling Tactics (Bloomberg)

The liberals’ longtime dream of a government-run health care system for all died Wednesday in the Senate, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont vowed it will return when the realization dawns that private insurance companies “are no longer needed.”

Here is the original post:
Single-payer health care plan dies in Senate (AP via Yahoo! News)

Hopes for rapid progress on President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul dimmed Wednesday as Republican delaying tactics complicated the work of Senate Democratic leaders to line up 60 votes and move the bill.

Read more from the original source:
GOP delay tactics slow Dems on health care votes (AP via Yahoo! News)

Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean argued Wednesday that the health care overhaul bill taking shape in the Senate further empowers private insurers at the expense of consumer choice — a claim the White House rejected.

Read the rest here:
Dean urges defeat of emerging health care bill (AP via Yahoo! News)

Senate Democrats’ drive to pass the health care overhaul by Christmas sputtered Wednesday as a lone moderate holdout remained undecided and Republican delaying tactics stretched an already protracted debate even further.

Go here to read the rest:
Health care overhaul bill slowed by read-a-thon (AP via Yahoo! News)

The AMANews reports that the Michigan Supreme Court is examining whether the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) preempts state law to allow a defendant physician in a medical liability case to interview the plaintiff/patient’s other treating physicians. The history and docket information on the case before the Michigan Supreme Court, Andrea L

The rest is here:
HIPAA: Michigan Supreme Court Examing Preemption, Confidentiality and Ex Parte Interview of Treating Physicians in Medical Liability Litigation

Over the next couple of months the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be hosting the Exploring Privacy: A Roundtable Services . The roundtable discussions are day-long public roundtable discussions to explore the privacy challenges posed by the vast array of 21st century technology and business practices that collect and use consumer data

View original post here:
FTC Exploring Privacy: Rountable Series

Yesterday I was listening to CBO head Doug Elmendorf on NPR ( CBO Chief On Health Care Bills ) and was disturbed by the lack of robustness in the analysis being conducted on the fiscal impact of Health Care reform. Read the transcript here and tell me if this doesn’t sound like industrial age thinking to you: models that may not actually fit reality “a model is developed using estimates of how people have behaved in the past.” Uncertainty expressed but not part of the model “And we always emphasize the uncertainty that surrounds our estimates.” But the quote preceding the last one is really telling: “The challenge is that the changes being considered are really outside of the range of changes that we’ve seen in the past in most of the country.” The CBO isn’t using scenario to imagine different futures in which health care reform exists.

View post:
Congressional Budget Office needs Scenario Planning

Last year Paul Levy , Matthew Holt and Alexandra Drane asked me to participate in the Engage With Grace Thanksgiving Blog Rally. My post last year describes the Engage with Grace project and tells my personal story of why end of life care is important for all of us to discuss with our family and loved ones

See the original post:
2009 Engage With Grace Thanksgiving Weekend Blog Rally

Today the West Virginia Health Information Network released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a statewide Health Information Exchange. More information, including the deadlines, bidder worksheets and a full copy of the RFP are available on the WVHIN website . Following are sections from the RFP that provide a general overview of the proposed West Virginia Health Information Exchange and a general scope of the RFP: The West Virginia Health Information Network (WVHIN) is soliciting proposals to provide a statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE) infrastructure platform for physicians, hospitals, other health care organizations, and consumers.

See the rest here:
WVHIN Releases RFP for West Virginia Health Information Exchange

Last week, the Elder Economic Security Initiative welcomed representatives from each of our twelve states (Massachusetts, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, and West Virginia) to Washington for the 2009 Elder Economic Security State Partner Summit.

Continue reading here:
State Partners Visit Washington DC

Today I participated in the first call of the American Health Lawyers Association’s Task Force on Electronic Health Records and Legal Liability. The task force will focus its efforts on the legal liabilities associated with Electronic Health Records (EHR), Health Information Exchanges (HIE) and Personal Health Records (PHR). The group is being led by Jud DeLoss and Kathy Kenyon, both members of AHLA.

Read the original post:
AHLA: EHR, HIE and PHR Legal Liability Task Force

I was recently in my hometown of New Martinsville visiting my dad , a retired family physician. When I arrived he had waiting for me a copy of one of my grandfather’s medical records from the 1930s. My grandfather, Dr

Here is the original post:
A 1930 Medical Record

Earlier this week I met up with Craig Thomler, the man behind Gov 2.0 blog eGov and the online component of the current Australian government consultation into major reform of the national health care system . The site has been badged, YourHealth , as is worth a look

Follow this link:
Your Health: Australian Government Online Consultation about Healthcare Reform

Below is a visual of the top 500 words used in HR 3962: Affordable Health Care for America Act . Since most people (including many of our representatives in Washington) haven’t read all 1,990 pages of the Health Care Reform Bill, I thought a visual aid might be helpful

Read more:
Visualizing HR 3962: Affordable Health Care for America Act

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) has launched a new blog called the Federal Advisory Committee Blog (FACA Blog) . The initial post by Judy Sparrow discusses that the FACA Blog will be uses in a spirit of transparency and collaboration to help open a broader dialogue on the issues before the Health IT Standards Committee and the Health IT Policy Committee .

Read the original:
Federal Advisory Committee Blog (FACA Blog)

Two pieces of legislation are moving through Congress that have the potential to affect the economic security of America’s elders. The Medicare Premium Fairness Act of 2009 (H.R.

Originally posted here:
Bills Considered in U.S. Congress to Support Elder Economic Security

Lobbying efforts win health-care concessions — Demonized by Democrats and ostensibly threatened with more government regulation, medical insurance executives have lobbied so successfully in Washington and the home districts of key lawmakers that they are poised to reap a financial windfall from the health-care overhaul.

More:
Health-care reform: Medical insurers poised to reap a healthy ‘bonanza’ (Chicago Tribune)

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, a key Republican negotiator in the quest for bipartisan health-care reform, said Wednesday that the outpouring of anger at town hall meetings this month has fundamentally altered the nature of the debate and convinced him that lawmakers should consider drastically scaling…

Here is the original post:
Grassley Urges Scaling Back on Health-Care Reform Plan, Citing Town Hall Anger (Washington Post)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama participated in a scripted online discussion of his health care overhaul with a friendly audience of religious voters and pastors Wednesday. It ended with him bemoaning those who bear “false witness” against his plans — and then making a claim of his own that’s been widely shown to be false.

Follow this link:
Fighting false health care claims, Obama repeats one of his own (McClatchy Newspapers via Yahoo! News)