By Christopher Weaver

Before Sen. Scott Brown's surprise victory in Massachusetts reframed the health debate, Democrats labeled the GOP the "party of no ideas" and alleged they refused to participate in talks as a political calculation. Now, President Obama, the top Democrat, is wondering what's on their minds after all.

Is there a way out of here? (iStockphoto.com)

If Republicans do choose to participate in Obama's proposed Feb. 25 health forum -- a big "If", given that GOP leaders have set loads of conditions--what can we expect to hear from the alleged Party of No? Ideas, yes. But surprises, probably not.

A quick look back on Republican health chatter does show a roster of ideas beyond just malpractice reform. Many were aired well before the current overhaul debate began. A recent proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, binds many of them in a neat compendium -- two decades worth of ideas generated by Republican health wonks.

Continue reading "GOP 'Roadmap' Summons Health Ideas Of Debates Past" >

By Nadja Popovich

First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the details of her plan to fight childhood obesity today.

President Barack Obama signs a memorandum on childhood obesity while First Lady Michelle Obama looks on. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty)

The outline for the "Let's Move" initiative comes almost two weeks after Mrs. Obama first announced the campaign against childhood obesity. As Kevin Whitelaw wrote for Shots then, Mrs. Obama talked publicly about her own experience as a mother dealing with warning signs about her daughters' weight.

In a speech given at the launch of "Let's Move" today, the first lady pulled on this experience once more:

It wasn't that long ago that I was a working mom....And there were some nights when everyone was tired and hungry, and we just went to the drive-thru because it was quick and cheap, or went with one of the less healthy microwave options, because it was easy.

Continue reading "First Lady Seeks Change On Childhood Obesity" >

By Scott Hensley

The era of blockbuster medicines has been defined by drugs that help the worried well stave off illness.

How low can your heart risk go? (iStockphoto.com)

Most people who take medicines to control blood pressure and cholesterol, for instance, aim to prevent heart attacks and strokes from striking. Then there's the prevention of osteoporosis by taking a pill to treat a mild thinning of the bones, the secret to Merck's success with Fosamax.

Now the bar for taking a cholesterol-fighting drug has been lowered to the point that there's a drug for some people with normal bad cholesterol.

That drug is Crestor, sold by AstraZeneca, and it costs about $4 a day. Similar generic drugs , such as simvastatin, can be had for $4 a month.

Continue reading "Now A Drug For People With Normal Cholesterol" >

By Nadja Popovich

As President Obama looks to get health overhaul legislation moving again, over the weekend he called out a California insurer's planned rate hike as an example of why change is still needed.

On Monday, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius challenged Anthem Blue Cross of California, a unit of WellPoint, to publicly justify the increase--as much as 39 percent on individual policies next month.

In an open letter to the company, Sebelius wrote, "These extraordinary increases... threaten to make health care unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of Californians, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet in a difficult economy." About 2.5 million Californians are covered by individually purchased policies.

Continue reading "Insurer's Rate Hike Becomes Administration Talking Point" >

By Nadja Popovich

Want to do something really good for your kids waistlines? Set the table, turn off the TV and send 'em to bed early.

Less TV leads to fewer pounds. (iStockphoto.com)

Kids who make a routine of eating family dinners, cutting down TV and gaming time, and getting a good night's sleep are 40 percent less likely to be obese than those who practice none of these habits, a new study finds.

The results, published in the March issue of Pediatrics, looked at a sample of more than 8,000 4-year-olds to gauge the effect of these three household habits on obesity. Regularly eating dinner as a family was defined to at least 5 meals a week, getting adequate nightly sleep meant at least 10.5 hours per night, and limited TV, computer, and gaming time on weekdays meant less than 2 hours per day.

Continue reading "Fighting Childhood Obesity Should Be Part Of Family Routine" >

By Christopher Weaver

New Orleans Saints' quarterback Drew Brees may have taken the spotlight during last night's big game, but a government-sponsored advertisement offered viewers a chance to star in a major 2010 production, too: The U.S. Census.

The $2.5 million ad, directed by mockumentary pioneer Christopher Guest, who also worked on This Is Spinal Tap and Best in Show, beseeched spectators to pose for a "snap shot of America."

The Constitution requires the national head count every 10 years, and the government uses the findings to allocate around $400 billion a year, according to Census documents. A lot of that money goes to health programs, such as state-run Medicaid plans for the poor, and grants for social service programs, substance abuse clinics and hospital construction.

Continue reading "Conceptual Census Super Bowl Ad: Bargain Or Boondoggle?" >

By Scott Hensley

From the annals of bright health care ideas that have unintended consequences comes a tale of what happens when Medicare pays doctors more to do bladder cancer surgery in their offices.

(Wikimedia Commons)

If you guessed those doctors did more bladder biopsies and related procedures during office visits, you'd be right. But you'd be very wrong if you figured, as Medicare officials did when they came up with the plan, that the in-office work would dramatically reduce the expense of hospital care. Overall costs to Medicare for bladder cancer rose about 50 percent, says a study of the changes at a New York practice just published online by the journal Cancer.

The basic problem is that the 2005 hike in payments occurred without any guidelines to help doctors decide what was appropriate care, explained Dr. Micah Hemani, urology resident and lead author of the report. "Medicare's intention was to save costs," he tells Shots. "And that is not what's actually happening in our practice." Hemani is at New York University Langone Medical Center.

Continue reading "Incentive To Treat Bladder Cancer In Doctors' Offices Raised Medicare Costs" >

By Scott Hensley

Which Super Bowl ad really grabbed our attention? Not Google's or even Audi's Green Police spot, which people seemed to love or hate.

For us, it was President Obama's pitch for health overhaul in a pre-game interview with CBS News' Katie Couric. The biggest development? Obama plans a televised summit meeting of Republicans and Democrats to be held on Feb. 25.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

He laid out a few more details of his plan to restart health overhaul and underscored its importance, even after the effort stalled in the wake of Republican Sen. Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts last month, ending the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Continue reading "Obama Plans Televised Health Overhaul Summit With GOP " >

By Phil Galewitz

HHS Secretary Sebelius says 2.6 million more kids got health insurance last year. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Just because Congress hasn't passed a health overhaul bill yet doesn't mean they haven't done anything to help the uninsured.

A year ago, Congress gave the Children's Health Insurance Program a serious funding boost and relaxed some of the restrictions preventing states from expanding the health coverage. CHIP is the program to get kids covered whose parents are too poor to buy private insurance but make too much to qualify for regular Medicaid.

And according to federal study released yesterday, about 2.6 million kids who didn't have health insurance before got help last year through government health programs like CHIP and Medicaid. Today, about 40 million American children get health care coverage through these programs -- 7.4 million of them through CHIP.

Continue reading "Congress Gets Credit For Boosting Kids Health Coverage" >

By Richard Knox

Right now my right deltoid is slightly tender from two needle pokes yesterday--one for swine flu, one for the seasonal flu.

The swine flu shots came eventually but there weren't many takers. (Thierry Zoccolan/AP)

A new government-funded flu poll reveals I'm among just one out of five adults to get vaccinated against swine flu. That's right, just 21 percent have done what I did, despite the biggest push ever to persuade Americans to get immunized.

Even among "high priority" adults--those with heart and lung disease, neurological conditions, HIV and other conditions that put that at risk of flu complications and death--the score isn't much higher. Just 28 percent of them are protected.

Continue reading "Flu Vaccine In America: Epidemic Of Ambivalence" >