Your Soaring Insurance Premiums
Annual premiums for employer-sponsored health coverage soared by 9 percent for families and 8 percent for individuals this year from 2010, far faster than wages or inflation. Republicans, predictably, blamed health care reform for contributing to the rise. In fact, the reforms accounted for only 1.5 percentage points of the increase this year. The value to millions of Americans who are already getting expanded coverage and benefits is undeniable.
How to Steer Toward the Path of Least Treatment
By RONI CARYN RABIN
The first doctor Lynn Munroe consulted about her hyperactive thyroid gland recommended radioactive iodine treatment to destroy the gland, followed by a lifelong regimen of thyroid hormone replacement pills.
The second physician she consulted said that he could operate, removing the gland without radiation, but that she would still need to take the pills.
A third doctor suggested a more cautious approach, prescribing medication to depress the gland’s activity. It worked: Ms. Munroe, 49, a publicist in West Nyack, N.Y., no longer has symptoms of hyperthyroidism, even though she has been weaned off the medication.
Fight for Social Programs Looms Anew in the House
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are laying the groundwork for another battle with President Obama over spending and domestic policy with a bill that would cut some of his favorite health and education programs, tie the hands of the National Labor Relations Board and eliminate federal grants for Planned Parenthood clinics.
The bill, which finances the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, would prohibit Mr. Obama from spending more money to carry out the new health care law until all legal challenges to it were resolved.
Report on Medicare Cites Prescription Drug Abuse
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Medicare is subsidizing drug abuse by thousands of beneficiaries who shop around for doctors and fillprescriptions for huge quantities of painkillers and other narcotics far exceeding what any patient could safely use, Congressional investigators say in a new report.
The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said Medicare officials had been slow to recognize and act on the evidence of abuse, which is to be presented at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
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