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Senate Finance Committee Releases Policy Paper Describing Options To Pay For Health Overhaul
Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday released a 41-page document outlining policy options for financing health care reform, The Hill reports (Young, The Hill, 5/18). The paper is the third and final to be released before the senators draft health reform legislation. The document says Baucus and Grassley do not support all the proposals included in the paper, but does not indicate which are backed by the senators (Wayne, CQ Today, 5/18). The options, which will be discussed at a closed-door committee meeting on Wednesday, include a number of proposed spending cuts and new or revised taxes (Drucker, Roll Call, 5/18). The report outlines several ways to gain revenue by re-evaluating the tax exemption for employer-sponsored health care benefits, which cost the government $194.2 billion in revenue in 2008, according to the report. The options include:

Global Confirmed Swine Flu Cases Nears 10,000
According to WHO (World Health Organization), the total number of confirmed swine flu A(H1N1) cases of human infections stands at 9,830, including 79 deaths. The numbers of confirmed cases are rising by approximately 1,000 per day, says WHO. Japan has seen confirmed cases rise sharply over the last few days.
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BioMçİrieux Announces AOAC-RI Certification Of Its New VIDAS(R) UP E. Coli O157 (Including H7 Strain) Detection Kit
bioMçİrieux (Paris:BIM), a world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics, announced that an AOAC-RI certification has been granted (No. 060903) to the VIDAS® UP E. coli O157 (Including H7) method for screening beef, selected produce and irrigation water. Food manufacturers in the U.S. and many other countries rely on AOAC-RI certified testing methods to release their products on the market. The new solution is based on recombinant phage protein, the latest technology available for food pathogen screening, which offers unique specificity and sensitivity. E. coli O157:H7 is a potentially lethal strain of Escherichia coli that has caused many food outbreaks in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe.
Public Health

Editorial, Opinion Piece Respond To Health Care Reform Issues

President Obama is "right to push for [health care] reform now, despite calls to postpone efforts solely on the economic recovery," a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial states. According to the editorial, cost-cutting initiatives proposed by industry groups earlier this week "may not amount to anything" because they are voluntary and "providers" past efforts at containing costs have failed every time." However, the groups" vow to reduce future health care spending by $2 trillion "shows how much fat and waste is in the system," according to the Inquirer. The editorial also states that the "most assured means of tamping down costs while providing greater access to health coverage could be through" a government-run public health insurance option. In addition, Obama "needs to warm to the idea of requiring that all Americans obtain health insurance," in order to spread out the cost of care, the editorial continues. The editorial concludes that "it"s encouraging that Obama doesn"t plan to let a couple of wars and a recession sidetrack him from his pledge to reform health care and expand coverage to all Americans" (Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/14). Opinion Piece Although biomedical "innovation" might be "written out of the script" in the debate over health care reform, "without new, more effective medicines -- along with new devices and diagnostic tools, and better treatments and surgical techniques -- it will be impossible for larger numbers of Americans to obtain better health care at a manageable cost," Eli Lilly Chair and CEO John Lechleiter writes in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. Lechleiter continues that it is "vital to all of us that we insist that reform proposals pass the "innovation test."" He continues, "Providing insurance to millions of Americans would fail that test," but "innovation would remain reasonably secure if universal access were achieved through tax credits and government subsidies." He also states, "Curtailing health care costs by allowing the federal government to dictate prices for branded medicines also would fail the test" and allow the creation of "laws that could weaken the enforcement of patents on biotechnology products." According to Lechleiter, the Pathways to Biosimilars Act (HR 1548) "strikes the right balance between innovation and competition," by "giving innovators the time needed to recoup their research investments while defining a clear framework for legal copying of biotech products down the road." Lechleiter concludes, "Our legislators in Washington still have the power to keep innovation in the health care reform script. Not doing so would be a true American tragedy" (Lechleiter, Wall Street Journal, 5/14). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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