Surgery Rate Late in Life Surprises Researchers
By GINA KOLATA
Surgery is surprisingly common in older people during the last year, month and even week of life, researchers reported Wednesday, a finding that is likely to stoke, but not resolve, the debate over whether medical care is overused and needlessly driving up medical costs.
The most comprehensive examination of operations performed on Medicare recipients in the final year of life found that nationally in 2008, nearly one recipient in three had surgery in the last year of life. Nearly one in five had surgery in the last month of life. Nearly one in 10 had surgery in the last week of life.
Refused and Confused
By LINDA GREENHOUSELinda Greenhouse on the Supreme Court and the law.
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The refusal by an upstate New York town clerk to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, as reported on the front page of The Times last week, can be seen simply as a discordant footnote to the march of marriage equality in New York State. But seen in a broader context, it is also more than that.
When the clerk, Rose Marie Belforti, explained that “God doesn’t want me to do this, so I can’t do what God doesn’t want me to do,” she placed herself among a growing number of individuals and institutions with public responsibilities who claim a right to opt out. Often, but not always, their reason is anchored in religious belief. Whatever the reason, such claims pose troublesome issues of law (of course, the Ledyard, N.Y., town clerk’s refusal is now the subject of a lawsuit) and public policy.
Partners, Blue Cross strike deal on rates
Reimbursements cut by nearly $250m in deal New contract would cover HMO patients
Ask Republicans about jobs, they’ll answer about Obamacare
By Dana Milbank,
By most of the usual measures, President Obama has no business being reelected. Here’s why he might be anyway.On Wednesday morning, as Senate Democratic leaders were scrambling to find a way to enact part of Obama’s jobs bill, a dozen Republican lawmakers assembled outside the Capitol to complain about . . . health-care reform.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2011/10/05/gIQAjPVKOL_print.html
Insurance whistle-blower Potter speaks in support of Obama health reforms
Posted Oct. 05, 2011, at 7:33 p.m.
HALLOWELL, Maine — The Obama administration’s heath care overhaul isn’t making everyone happy, but health insurance industry whistle-blower Wendell Potter says it’s an important step in the right direction.
Potter told a coalition of liberal-leaning advocacy groups and policy organizations on Wednesday that supporters of the Affordable Care Act must be well informed and speak with one voice in defending it against powerful groups that seek to overturn it or undo the key consumer protections it contains.
The ACA “is far from perfect but it is a strong start and already making improvements in the lives of Americans,” Potter said, speaking to the first formal meeting of a group known as the Health Care for Maine Alliance. The group met at the Maple Hill Farm conference center in Hallowell.
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