Statins and Heart Health
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY
Q. Has the rate of death from heart attacks in the United States been going down in the years since people have been taking statins?
A. The short answer is yes, but many factors could account for the decline. Indeed, the rate has been going down fairly steadily since 1980 — before the introduction of statins, which lower “bad”cholesterol, a known risk factor for heart disease.
Drug to Cut Cholesterol Tests Better Than Statin
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
An experimental drug that works in a novel way to lower cholesterol proved even more effective than statins and had few undesirable side effects, newly released data shows.
The drug works by modifying the way cholesterol levels are naturally controlled. A protein produced in the liver helps limit the amount of LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, that liver cells can remove from the bloodstream. The new drug, called REGN727, is a monoclonal antibody, made in a laboratory, that blocks the action of that protein.
“About 5 to 10 percent of people can’t tolerate statins at all, and more can’t tolerate higher doses,” said Dr. Evan A. Stein, director of the Metabolic and Atherosclerosis Research Center in Cincinnati and lead author of the drug trials. “It’s still early in development, but for them this is potentially a most promising alternative.”
For Justices, a Matter of Framing the Core Issue on Health Care
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday hears arguments on the central question in the constitutional challenges to President Obama’s health care overhaul law. How it answers the question depends in large part on how the justices decide to frame the core issue.
The law’s challengers — 26 states led by Florida, the National Federation of Independent Business and several individuals — present the central question as one of individual liberty. May the federal government, they ask, compel individuals not engaged in commerce to buy a product, here health insurance, from private companies?
The Obama administration, by contrast, urges the court to answer a different question. May Congress decide, in fashioning a comprehensive response to a national crisis in the health care market, to regulate how people pay for the health care they will almost inevitably need?
Vindication for Challenger of Health Care Law
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON — When Congress passed legislation requiring nearly all Americans to obtain health insurance, Randy E. Barnett, a passionate libertarian who teaches law at Georgetown, argued that the bill was unconstitutional. Many of his colleagues, on both the left and the right, dismissed the idea as ridiculous — and still do.
But over the past two years, through his prolific writings, speaking engagements and television appearances, Professor Barnett has helped drive the question of the health care law’s constitutionality from the fringes of academia into the mainstream of American legal debate and right onto the agenda of the United States Supreme Court.
Americans on the 2010 Health Care Law
Awaiting Health Law Ruling, and Preparing Plan B
By REED ABELSON
State officials and insurance executives are devising possible alternatives to the coming federal requirement that most Americans buy health insurance, even as the Supreme Court hears arguments about the constitutionality of the mandate.
The options being discussed include imposing state requirements that people get insurance, penalties for people who delay and automatic coverage enrollment. While it is unclear which way the court will rule, state officials and insurance executives say they have no choice but to prepare their options before the proposed mandate goes into effect in 2014. “We’re always working on Plan B — always,” said Senator Karen Keiser, a state lawmaker in Washington State who leads a group tackling the issue.
“It will be up to state legislators, that is where the power will move,” said Ms. Keiser, a Democrat. “We have a lot of options at the state level.”
Step to the Center
By DAVID BROOKS
On May 23-24, 1865, the victorious Union armies marched through Washington. The columns of troops stretched back 25 miles. They marched as a single mass, clad in blue, their bayonets pointing skyward.
As Wilfred McClay wrote in his book, “The Masterless,” spectators were transfixed and realized that the war had changed them. These troops had gone to war as a coalition of states, with different uniforms in different colors. But they came back as a centralized unit, with a national identity and consciousness.
American history can be seen as a series of centralizing events — the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Progressive Era, the New Deal and the Great Society.
Many liberals have tended to look at this centralizing process as synonymous with modernization — as inevitable and proper. As problems like inequality get bigger, government has to become more centralized to deal with them. As corporations grow, government has to grow to counterbalance them.
Getting to the Merits
Before ruling on whether Congress has power to require Americans to obtain health insurance, the Supreme Court must decide whether it is barred from taking up that question by the federal Anti-Injunction Act, which prohibits courts from hearing lawsuits that seek to block a tax before the tax is actually paid.
During an hour and a half of oral arguments on Monday, the justices showed their interest in addressing the merits of the case and their skepticism that the Anti-Injunction Act posed an insurmountable hurdle to doing so. That instinct seems right.
Supreme Court turns to key constitutional issue in health-care law
By N.C. Aizenman and Robert Barnes,
The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned to the main constitutional question in its review of the nation’s health-care overhaul, and the Obama administration’s top lawyer immediately came under fire from conservative justices on whether Congress has the power to require almost all Americans to secure health insurance or pay a penalty.A day after opening their historic review of the two-year-old law, the justices scheduled two hours of arguments — twice the normal allotment — to consider the issue. The question of the limits of government power has animated the nation’s debate over the health-care law since it was passed by a Democratic Congress in 2010. The law, President Obama’s signature domestic initiative, has been roundly denounced by Republican officeholders and the candidates vying to run against him in the November presidential election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-considers-main-constitutional-question-in-health-care-law/2012/03/26/gIQAkyKWdS_print.html
Health-care provision at center of Supreme Court debate was a Republican idea
By N.C. Aizenman,
As the Supreme Court moves Tuesday to the heart of the challenge to President Obama’s signature health-care law, there is a curious twist: The case largely rests on the constitutionality of a provision that originated deep in Republican circles.The individual insurance mandate, which requires virtually all Americans to obtain health coverage or pay a fine, was the brainchild of conservative economists and embraced by some of the nation’s most prominent Republicans for nearly two decades. Yet today many of those champions — including presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich — are among the mandate’s most vocal critics.
Meanwhile, even as Democratic stalwarts warmed to the idea in recent years, one of the last holdouts was the man whose political fate is now most closely intertwined with the mandate: President Obama.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/health-care-provision-at-center-of-supreme-court-debate-was-a-republican-idea/2012/03/25/gIQAoCHocS_print.html
No comments:
Post a Comment