Selected stories from the daily newsletter CQ HealthBeat from the week of January 26, 2009. Provided as a service under rights licensed by The Commonwealth Fund. The full-text version of this newsletter can be accessed via the DC Policy Updates box on the Fund's Web site,
www.commonwealthfund.org.
Senators are gearing up for a wide-ranging floor debate on an $888 billion economic stimulus bill starting today, with Republicans and Democrats alike seeking to make changes to the massive package. Read more »
Senate and House Democrats introduced legislation that would allow Medicare to offer seniors a government-run prescription drug plan as an alternative to private plans currently offered in the Medicare drug program. Read more »
The conventional wisdom is that Congress must move quickly while President Obama still has political capital if lawmakers are to pass legislation extensively overhauling the nation's health care system. Read more »
President Obama should act quickly if he hopes to pass wide-scale changes to the health care system, said two health care experts, whose suggestion is one of eight pieces of advice on enacting health overhaul published in a new edition of Health Affairs. Read more »
At least 36 million young and working-age Americans in 2007 went without a prescribed medicine because of its cost and more will have trouble as the economy declines, according to a recent report by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Read more »
While other key Democrats are hinting that a health overhaul may not be accomplished this year, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman isn't among them, declaring that overhaul legislation can be introduced and signed into law in 2009. Read more »