Politico: "Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas kicked off a National Governors Association summit on health care Monday with an ominous word about the date" and the need to beware the ides of March. "The governors feel like they've gotten the Brutus treatment, too." Earlier in the process, the White House "made overtures to governors ...

The following summarizes selected women's health-related blog entries. ~ "Healthcare Reform Bill Abortion Debate is Nonsensical," Robert Schlesinger, U.S...

The Health Care Letdown The New York Times What's more, the core of the Senate's legislation closely resembles the very bill the Republicans offered in 1993 as an alternative to the Clinton plan. This makes clear that bipartisan reform was achievable, and indicts Congress for its failure to realize that goal with broad public support (William Pewen, 3/15)...

In an article published in the March 2010 Archives of Dermatology, researchers report that in the United States, melanoma treatment in late stages of the disease is of significant cost in the population 65 years and older. The incidence of melanoma has risen dramatically over the years, and older white men have the highest rate of mortality...

More Than Onerous The New York Times After a year of national debate, a handful of House Democrats who oppose abortion may be the ones to decide whether health care reform goes forward or not. ... We are puzzled and dismayed that these legislators are willing to waste that opportunity because they say the onerous anti-abortion provisions in the Senate's bill are still not onerous enough (3/14)...

Two Republican members of Kentucky's House are attaching antiabortion-rights amendments to several unrelated bills that are awaiting a chamber vote, a move that is threatening to derail changes related to children's Medicaid coverage, among other things, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The amendments -- sponsored by Reps...

Congressional Democrats, reportedly closing in on a final health reform agreement, are seeking to alleviate concerns of reluctant members. The Associated Press: "It will come down to a phenomenal effort by congressional leaders and the White House to win over skittish lawmakers after a year of incendiary debate ...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today terminated its contract with Fox Insurance Company. After an onsite review of the plan and its services, CMS determined that the plan's significant deficiencies - not meeting Medicare's requirements to provide enrollees with prescription drugs according to recognized standards of care - jeopardized the health and safety of Fox enrollees...

The Boston Globe: "President Barack Obama said Tuesday he'll bring in high-tech bounty hunters to help root out health care fraud, grabbing a populist idea with bipartisan backing in his final push to overhaul the system. ... Obama's anti-fraud announcement was aimed directly at the political middle." "Waste and fraud are pervasive problems for Medicare and Medicaid. ...

The Senate is set to vote Wednesday on a jobs bill that would extend the COBRA subsidy program and Medicaid funding for states and prevent a Medicare reimbursement cut for doctors. The Associated Press: The bill "extends health insurance subsidies for the unemployed through December. It would add $132 billion to the budget deficit over the next year and a half. ...

The Boston Globe: "A group of Massachusetts mayors, fed up with what they say is legislative inaction on skyrocketing municipal health care costs, has launched a ballot initiative for 2012 aimed at giving cities and towns more flexibility in reducing expensive benefits for employees, retirees, and elected officials" (Murphy, 3/10)...

Purchases of cholesterol and diabetes prescription drugs by elderly Medicare beneficiaries reached nearly $19 billion in 2007 - about one-fourth of the approximately $82 billion spent for medications for the elderly, according to the latest AHRQ News and Numbers...

The Fiscal Times reports on medical miracles and their place in the national health care reform debate with a likely subheading: high health care costs. "The idea of foregoing heroic efforts and new technologies to save dying patients is anathema for most Americans...

The Washington Post has a section today titled "Scenes from the 21st century doctor's office." One feature, written by Manoj Jain, an infectious-disease specialist in Memphis, advocates for a new system of "bundled" Medicare payments to doctors. He notes that currently, "patients, insurance companies and Medicare pay separately for each procedure in the predominant 'fee-for-service' model...

The Dallas Morning News: "Lawmakers have been thinking ahead to a massive shortfall, topping $10 billion, that's probably coming when they write the next budget in 2011. But state officials told them Monday that they'll have to fix a hole in the current budget, too. Rising health care costs have dug a hole of about $1.7 billion, the officials said...

Medicare payment issues including rising costs, caps on physical therapy and other outpatient services for some patients are in the news. The Dallas Morning News reports that Medicare Advantage plans with drug benefits are getting more expensive: "Seniors in those plans will pay an average of $39.61 a month this year in premiums, up 14...

If Reform Fails The New York Times Any change as big as this is bound to cause anxiety. Republicans have happily fanned those fears with talk of "dangerous experiments" on the "best health care system in the world." The fact is that the health care system is broken for far too many Americans. And the country cannot afford the status quo (3/6)...

Building on previous studies that found racial differences in hospice use, a new study from the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife and Boston University School of Medicine finds that blacks and Hispanics use hospice for advanced heart failure at a rate of up to 50 percent less than whites, despite a markedly higher rate of incidence of the disease in these populations...

New Century Infusion Solutions, Inc. (NCIS), the first Oncology Benefit Management (OBM) company, is pleased to announce the publication of a white paper by the Lewin Group: "Medicare Cancer Care Coordination Using The Integrated Single Specialty Provider (ISSP) Model." The report estimates that over a 10-year horizon, a payer could realize oncology savings of "$16...

Several news organization have "fact checks" on the reconciliation procedure and health reform provisions. The Associated Press examined then-candidate Barack Obama's Oct. 2007 statement of "We're not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-one strategy...