UPDATED AND CORRECTED: 10:30 a.m., June 20, 2011
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — A $19.9 billion dollar spending bill banning the federal government from enforcing the individual insurance mandate in President Barack Obama’s health care reform law passed through the House Appropriations Committee this week.
The mandate isn’t set to take effect until 2014, but GOP legislators have been eager to knock it down before then.
Defunding the mandate could prevent the administration from hiring and training Internal Revenue Service agents to handle the law, and revenues would decrease because tax agents wouldn’t be able to assign penalties for noncompliance.
The bill cleared the subcommittee on financial services and general government appropriations. The bill is expected to hit the floor early in July, Healthwatch reported.
The mandate is also on trial in federal court, where a panel of appellate judges have given the provision a mixed reception.
Can the heart heal itself?
The heart may be able to repair itself after injury, according to a study published in the June 8 issue of the journal Nature, and researchers may have pinpointed the protein that stimulates the process, Heartwire reported.
"We have always believed that the heart has no capacity to heal itself, but this research suggests that this is not the case. We think we have discovered a natural process that brings about repair of the heart," said Dr. Peter Weissberg of the British Heart Foundation at a press conference. "Until now, this has been science fiction."
"The cells that are capable of this healing are already there in the epicardium. They just need to be tweaked and primed and the effect scaled up," Weissberg said.
The earliest medical devices and war-time surgery with Jay Walker at TEDMED
TEDMED, an annual medical conference covering medical and health care innovations, released more than a dozen videos from last year’s conference.
The video below features inventor and entrepreneur Jay Walker, chairman of health and medical R&D firm Walker Digital, who has twice been named to TIME magazine’s 50 most influential business leaders of the digital age. He discusses the earliest medical devices and how the necessity of medical care during war gave birth to practical and effective means.
Walker bought TEDMED earlier this year in a sale that saw TEDMED founder Richard Wurman quit the TEDMED conference for good, citing disappointment with the nature of the sale and the outlook for future conferences, MedGadget reported.
CEO Cohen explains CerebralRx’s new FitNeS stimulator
As CerebralRx ramps up the European launch of its FitNeS vagus nerve stimulation system, parent company BioMedical Control CEO Ehud Cohen took the time to explain the technology and its future to MedGadget.
The device has CE Mark approval in the European Union for treatment of epilepsy, but the company plans on treating other disorders, including depression and Alzheimer’s, Cohen said.
A national panel of medical organizations urges "value-driven engineering" to boost American innovation
Medical devices need to epitomize innovation as well as simplicity and cost-effectiveness, according to a national initiative led the Austen BioInnovation Institute of Akron, Ohio.*
Calling the practice "value-driven engineering," the institute issued a white paper detailing the need to drive innovation in the biomedical device industry and increase its leadership position in the global health care community.
The institute is comprised of a nationwide group of biomedical leaders including Akron Children’s Hospital, Akron General Health System, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Summa Health System, The University of Akron; and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
*Correction, June 20, 2011: This article originally referred to the recommendations as an Ohio initiative. The panel includes medical devices from across the nation. Return to the corrected sentence.