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Researchers Discover Genetic Cause For Primary Biliary Cirrhosis
Researchers have discovered a novel molecular path that predisposes patients to develop primary biliary cirrhosis, a disease that mainly affects women and slowly destroys their livers. Primary biliary cirrhosis has no known cause.

Drop In Access To Abortion Would Reward Antiabortion-Rights Violence, Opinion Piece Says
After the murder last month of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, "there is a very real danger" that the availability of abortion later in pregnancy "will end in this country -- not after public deliberation, legislative debate and majority vote, but because antiabortion absolutists on the fringe have intimidated and blacklisted doctors and successfully threatened violence against them," Jim Buie, author of the blog The Buie Knife, writes in a Newsweek.com opinion piece. Buie writes that his parents in the early 1950s chose to institutionalize his three-year-old-brother, who was born with severe Down syndrome, after their attempts to care for him left them with "severe emotional distress" and unable "to meet the needs of their healthy children."Buie continues that he "cannot say that the option of a late-term abortion would have been the right one for my parents." However, "some of the arguments advanced by pro-life forces disturb me," he says, especially a "tendency to romanticize, sentimentalize and idealize life with a cute, forever-young Down-syndrome "angel child."" Buie adds, "It"s an argument I find off-putting, especially when it"s espoused by people who have never been through the wringer trying to care for a child whose disability level is on the most severe end of the scale." He continues, "At the same time, it is very disturbing that until recently, the majority of Down-syndrome fetuses were aborted without expectant mothers receiving proper information or support."Because of Tiller"s murder, it is "possible there won"t be any doctors in the country willing to perform" abortion later in pregnancy, "even if prenatal tests indicate severe retardation," according to Buie, who adds that this would mean that "domestic terrorism could win." He concludes, "It would mean that parents like my own would no longer have a choice, and would instead be forced to endure the same harsh realities that were present in the 1950s" (Buie, Newsweek.com, 6/17).
News of the day
Sinai Physiatrist Enthusiatic About Word Addition
It"s a word that"s been around since the days of the Truman presidency. But a patient looking up "physiatry" would find nothing in the dictionary.
Diagnostics

The Formula For Sustainable Healthcare Reform

A new report, released by the Manhattan Institute"s Center for Medical Progress and authored Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, makes the fiscal and political case for bipartisan healthcare reform. Holtz-Eakin addresses dysfunctions in the existing healthcare delivery system; provides solutions to expanding access to affordable private health insurance in an incremental and fiscally responsible manner; and shows how improving market-based options will lead to better consumer access to information on healthcare quality. He argues that the only way to fix our broken healthcare system is through reforms that incentivize competition and pay for quality care. Principle 1: It"s about value. Any reform that does not address low-value care and cost growth will fail. Reforms consisting of a mandate to purchase insurance, in the absence of changes to the growth in health-care spending, would become increasingly expensive. Anticipated reforms: - Medicare and Medicaid payment reforms - reduce payment for readmissions and other low-quality care - reduce the subsidy in Medicare for high-income individuals - medical malpractice reform - Development of a pathway for follow-on biologics. Principle 2: A rising tide of quality insurance. The focus on covering the uninsured should be on a process that leads to increasing insurance. This is very different from an immediate move to universal coverage or other massive expansion. State-based approaches are the recommended vehicle for finding the best way to cover the uninsured. Principle 3: Private money, private insurance. Increasing coverage does not mean larger government programs. Instead, it should mean better and broader private health insurance for the U.S. population. Accordingly, there should be a firewall that does not permit new taxes or other private res (fees, costs of complying with mandates, etc.) to be devoted to a "tax and spend" government-centric health-care reform. Anticipated reforms for Principles 2 and 3: - The federal government should reform the subsidy for private health insurance. - The exclusion should be eliminated and re÷¬placed with a flat credit of $4,500 (indexed for CPI inflation) for those who have private health insurance - States should be permitted to allow Medicaid funds to be used for enrollment in private health insurance Principle 4: No more blind leading the sick. Families, providers, device manufacturers, hospitals, drug companies, and other participants in the U.S. health-care system interact in a complex and often baffling fashion. We must ensure that all participants understand their options, the cost implications of their options, and the likely health or economic consequences of their decisions. Anticipated reform: - Increase the penetration of health information technologies throughout the system with a business model that supports the use of such technologies - Transforming the payment system to reward coordination, quality, and low cost will create a business model for health information technology, for private-sector incentives to invest in these technologies, and for greater diffusion of information throughout the system. These reforms will gradually expand access to affordable, private health insurance; reduce waste and improve access to high-quality health care; and commit policymakers to fiscally sustainable health-care reforms. The report is available online . The Manhattan Institute


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