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CBO Report Details Budgetary Treatment Of Health Reform
A mandate requiring all U.S. residents to purchase health coverage would not be considered a new form of federal taxation as long as people could choose from a wide variety of private plans and no government entity was responsible for collecting their premiums, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released on Wednesday, the Washington Post reports. CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf in his blog wrote, "In CBO"s view, the key consideration is whether a proposal would be making health insurance an essentially governmental program, tightly controlled by the federal government, ... or whether the system would provide significant flexibility in terms of the types, prices and number of private-sector sellers of insurance available to people." He continued, "The former -- a governmental program -- belongs in the federal budget (including all premiums paid by individuals and firms to private insurers), but the latter -- a largely private-sector system -- does not." Elmendorf wrote, "Premium income -- for a public plan (or plans) and for insurance purchased through exchanges or in the private market -- should be classified as federal revenues if there is an individual mandate and tight government control of the insurance market." However, income from premiums should not appear in the federal budget "if there is no mandate and no public plan, or there is an individual mandate and an active, loosely restricted private market, and if premiums are paid through nongovernmental exchanges or directly to insurers."CBO in 1994, when lawmakers were considering the Clinton administration"s health reform proposal, concluded that a proposed requirement that employers and employees make payments into government-run insurance pools would constitute a form of taxation and a major expansion of the federal government (Montgomery, Washington Post, 5/28).
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Veterans Returning From Iraq And Afghanistan At High Risk For Mental Health Disorders
Mental health diagnoses increased substantially after the start of the Iraq War among specific subgroups of returned veterans entering Veterans" Administration (VA) health care, reports a new study.
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For America's Aged, Surgery At Any Price?
When doctors decide whether or not to go ahead with an expensive surgery, "age is no longer the deciding factor, even for invasive treatment such as open-heart surgery," The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. One question is "whether this never-too-old approach is an example of U.S. medical progress, or an example of why Medicare -- federal health insurance for people over 64 -- is headed for insolvency. The answer, experts say, is both. Which is why the current debate over expanding federal coverage to all uninsured Americans is an ethical and economic minefield. "Forty years ago, it was taken for granted that the elderly were not good candidates for organ transplantation, dialysis, or advanced surgical procedures. That has changed," Daniel Callahan, cofounder of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute in Garrison, N.Y., wrote recently. "Under the best of circumstances, age should be irrelevant in the Medicare program. But so far, the cost of care has not been considered, and it can hardly remain irrelevant in a program strapped for money.""
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Stanford's Kuldev Singh, MD Elected To Chair The Glaucoma Research Foundation

Kuldev Singh, MD, MPH, Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of the Glaucoma Service at the Stanford University School of Medicine, was elected to Chair the Board of the Glaucoma Research Foundation at the Board of Directors Annual Meeting held April 29. The Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF) is America"s oldest national institution dedicated solely to preventing vision loss from glaucoma. Dr. Singh received his MD and MPH degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has received Senior Achievement and Secretariat awards from the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the Franklin G. Ebaugh Award from Stanford University where he has served on the faculty since 1992. Dr. Singh also currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Glaucoma Society and is Executive Vice President of the World Glaucoma Association. Dr. Singh joined the GRF Board of Directors in April 2007. He is Chairman of the Patient Education Committee and the GRF Council, a national leadership group of glaucoma specialists. Effective July 1, 2009, Dr. Singh will succeed Ms. Deirdre Porter of the San Francisco firm Wentworth, Hauser, and Violich, Inc. who has served the past three years as Board Chair for the Foundation. "Kuldev has already brought many inventive ideas to GRF during his time serving on the Board of Directors, and we look forward to the leadership that his broad knowledge and experience in the field of glaucoma will bring to the Foundation," said Thomas M. Brunner, GRF President and CEO. The Glaucoma Research Foundation


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