Elena LaVictoire's Library tagged health →  View Popular

Washington,
DC (LifeNews.com) -- A nonpartisan web site that routinely serves
as a watchdog for public officials, the media and political groups
says President Barack Obama has it wrong. FactCheck.org says the current
health care plans pending in Congress do authorize abortion funding,
contrary to Obama's claims otherwise.

"Despite
what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered
by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plan,"
the web site concludes.

At
issue are concerns from pro-life groups that the government-run health
care plans would include abortion funding and coverage. Obama has
said they don't and gone as far as accusing pro-life groups of lying
about the legislation.

The
FactCheck web site, run by staff at the University of Pennsylvania,
says "it's true that House and Senate legislation would allow
a new 'public' insurance plan to cover abortions." The House
bill does so "despite" the addition of the Capps
amendment that pro-abortion lawmakers say prohibits abortion funding.

"Obama
has said in the past that 'reproductive services' would be covered
by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance
plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that,"
FactCheck adds.

That
mirrors what National Right to Life and other pro-life groups have
said, with NRLC legislative director Douglas Johnson explaining, "the
bill backed by the White House (H.R. 3200) explicitly authorizes the
government plan to cover all elective abortions."

Linda Lipsen, senior vice president of public affairs with the American Association for Justice, said those figures mean tort reform just isn't worth it.

"The current health care debate is focused on two tenets: lowering costs while improving care and covering the uninsured," Lipsen said. "Changing the legal system will not accomplish these goals and only make it harder for those injured by medical negligence, through no fault of their own, to seek legal recourse."

However, the CBO estimate did not account for defensive spending, which most proponents say eats up the real costs. In its 2003 report, HHS estimated that, between malpractice costs and defensive medicine, reasonable tort reforms would save the federal government between $28.1 billion and $50.6 billion a year. Projected out over 10 years, that's far more than CBO-estimated savings for replacing fee-for-service with bundled payments ($18.6 billion), setting up a health IT system ($34 billion) or a tax on the wealthy or insurance companies (about $100 billion).

"Even if it costs 2 cents, why wouldn't we want to eliminate those costs?" asked Darren McKinney, a spokesman for the American Tort Reform Association. "In the grand scheme of things, it's not the mother lode of costs, but it's certainly not insignificant."

While White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today refrained from telling reporters whether President Obama in his speech Wednesday night will set a deadline for passing health care reform, sources tell ABC News that in his private meeting with Democratic congressional leaders this afternoon the key word was urgency.

The president told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that it is important for them to pass health care reform bills soon, the sources said.

Both leaders told the president that despite the difficult rough and tumble of the legislative process in the last few weeks, they are optimistic that both the House and Senate can pass health care reform legislation.

Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being
diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the
diagnosis could be wrong.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and
friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."

Data from clinical trials to assess the safety and
effectiveness of swine flu vaccines will start to become
available in mid-September, health officials reported Aug. 21.
Full results from the two-dose trials won’t be available until
mid-October.

“We are making every preparation effort assuming a safe
and effective vaccine will be available in mid-October,”
Sebelius said today at the CDC’s Atlanta offices.

But since the symptoms (pain and bleeding) are similar to those caused by hemorrhoids, some people don't seek prompt medical care, says Dr. Mark Dobriner, a colorectal surgeon at St. Francis Hospital.

"The take home message here is that no rectal bleeding is normal and all rectal bleeding should always be evaluated," says Dobriner. "If caught early, anal cancer is much more treatable than rectal cancer."