Health care

November 13, 2009 -- (Washington, DC) - Congressman Baron Hill issued the following statement addressing false claims circulating about how the Affordable Health Care for America Act would impact seniors:

“This week, I have heard from several Southern Indiana seniors who are justifiably concerned by what they’re hearing from a group outside Indiana regarding how Medicare would be affected by the health care reform bill. This group is being disingenuous, scaring folks with alarming and false claims, and as such, I’d like to set the record straight.    » read more »

November 12, 2009 -- Washington, DC -- Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today announced his determination to fight against any upcoming health care legislation that further damages an already weakened public health insurance option.

Grijalva said that as the Senate takes up a final reform bill, a public plan should be offered without conditions to Americans in every state similar to the version approved in the House on Saturday.

“The House vote was a significant step, but much more work remains to be done,” said Grijalva, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Now the fight becomes about what kind of public option will survive. It will be very difficult for me to support a product that puts too many roadblocks in the way of broad public participation.”    » read more »

Reminds Seniors About Medicare Enrollment Period

November 13, 2009 -- WASHINGTON - Rep. Brad Ellsworth is reminding 8th District seniors and their families to take advantage of the upcoming Medicare Part D Open Enrollment period beginning November 15th. The annual Open Enrollment period allows seniors to sign-up for a drug plan or make changes to their current coverage.

Seniors can enroll by contacting their chosen plan directly or contacting the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) at 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) or by visiting: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/center/openenrollment.asp. The Open Enrollment period begins on November 15th and continues through December 31st of this year.    » read more »

November 13, 2009 -- AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes, on behalf of the AFL-CIO members, thanked Congressman Michael E. Capuano for his historic vote in favor of the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) in a letter dated November 10, 2009.

The letter states, "you and the other nine members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation who took a stand... are showing the rest of our nation how to lead on this important moral and economic issue." It goes on to say, "...working families will remember who fulfilled the promises they were elected to keep."    » read more »

11/13/09 -- Washington, DC -- Yesterday, Congressman Tim Bishop (NY-1) and members of the New York Congressional Delegation sent a bipartisan letter to federal, state and city officials expressing outrage over reports that over a dozen Wall Street firms were approved to receive some of the limited H1N1 vaccines available to the public. According to BusinessWeek, these private companies have received as many as 1200 units each in recent weeks as colleges, nursing homes and schools face severe shortages.    » read more »

Kerry Proposal Builds on Successful Best Practices in Massachusetts Health Care Reform

11/13/2009 --
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), a senior member of the Finance Committee, has written Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) requesting Kerry’s proposal to provide affordable insurance plans for the middle class be included in the health reform legislation that comes to the senate floor.

Kerry’s plan, often referred to as “prudent purchasing,” would allow state-run health insurance marketplaces to negotiate with private insurance companies to select the best, most affordable options for consumers.    » read more »

Will Require New Approaches in Designing, Adopting Strategies

November 11, 2009 -- Slowing the growth in U.S. health care spending will most likely require adoption of an array of strategies as well as an improved approach to moving promising strategies into widespread use, according to a new analysis by the RAND Corporation.

The most-promising option for curbing health care spending is changing the way doctors and hospitals are paid to provide care, but implementing such a system must overcome significant obstacles in order to be successful, according to the study published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.    » read more »

Pre-Market Testing Was Flawed, Public Citizen says

Nov. 11, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. - Medicare should deny reimbursement for a medical device for depression that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved despite unconvincing test results, Public Citizen said today in a letter sent to Medicare officials.

“The scant evidence presented for approval of this device does not come close to matching the type of data typically required for approval of anti-depressant drugs” said Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. “Medicare should not approve coverage of this unproven device because it could divert patients from more effective therapies.”    » read more »

“Nearly four million calls to action were sent to AARP members”

November 12, 2009 -- WASHINGTON -- After an historic vote in the House of Representatives this past Saturday, AARP and its nearly 40 million members remain hard at work, fighting for comprehensive health reform. As the health care reform debate moves to the Senate, AARP members are continuing to engage their friends and families in sending a message to Members of Congress that the time to fix the problems with our health care system is now.    » read more »

Collaboration goal is to advance 4 to 5 antibodies per year into clinical development

Paris, France – November 10, 2009 – Sanofi-aventis (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY) and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: REGN) announced today that they have entered into agreements to expand and extend their existing global collaboration to discover, develop, and commercialize fully-human therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.    » read more »

10 November 2009, London UK & Philadelphia US -- GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for its unadjuvanted influenza A (H1N1) pandemic vaccine. The approval of the sBLA, which was filed as a strain change supplement to GSK’s FluLaval seasonal flu vaccine, allows the company to manufacture a flu vaccine for use in adults to prevent influenza caused by the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza A strain.    » read more »

10 November 2009, London, UK -- GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) today announced that it has signed an agreement with the World Health Organization (WHO) to donate 50 million doses of its adjuvanted pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine to WHO for distribution to developing countries most in need. GSK is working with WHO and health authorities to prepare for initial shipments of the vaccine to developing countries by the end of November.    » read more »

Philadelphia, PA (November 11, 2009) – Results from a large, retrospective analysis of inmates with a serious mental illness (SMI) underscores the financial burden of mental illness on the criminal justice and health and human services (HHS) systems, and may provide useful information to policy makers. The results of the analysis, which evaluated patterns of arrest, utilization of services, and corresponding expenditures among nearly 3,800 inmates in a large urban county of Florida, were presented this week at the 137th American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting & Exposition.    » read more »

Supporters Join Congressman to Support Historic Vote for Reform

10 November 2009 -- (Bristol, PA) – Today, Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8th District) joined Bucks County seniors, nurses, and small business owners to laud House passage of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Nurses and seniors were on hand to share their experiences on why this critical health insurance reform legislation will help make coverage more accessible and affordable for 8th District residents. Organizing for America (OFA) and Health Care for America Now (HCAN) members joined the Congressman in a show of support for his vote in favor of this historic legislation.    » read more »

November 10, 2009 -- To reduce healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in stand-alone or same-day surgical centers, the HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the availability of up to $9 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to state survey agencies in 43 states. HAIs are infections some patients acquire when they are in a health care setting such as a hospital or outpatient clinic.    » read more »