Senate delays Medicare rate cut. The U.S. Senate yesterday unanimously approved a measure to block a scheduled rate cut by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, preserving doctors’ pay and likely forestalling their mass exodus from the federal health insurance program. It’s the 10th time in the last eight years that Congress has acted to block a looming rate cut, and the fourth in this year alone.
Massachusetts becomes the latest state to ban Four Loko. Stores that sell caffeinated alchoholic drinks such as Four Loko were ordered to remove the beverages from their shelves yesterday, according to WBUR. Phusion Projects, which makes the energy drink, said this week it will remove caffeine from the product.
Healthcare law in hostile hands. The tectonic movement in state politics across the country after the Nov. 2 election has left the healthcare law in hostile hands in many places, just as responsibility for carrying out the law begins to fall most heavily on the states, according to The New York Times.
Americans avoid costly healthcare. Among the world’s health citizens, those in one nation over all the others are most likely to postpone healthcare because of its cost: Americans, according to the HEALTHPopuli blog.
Bootcamp for women angels. Dawn Barber, co-founder of NY Tech Meetup, never has had the money to invest in companies pitched in her investor forum. Now, Barber is applying to the Pipeline Fund Fellowship, a new program for women who want to learn the ins and outs of angel investing, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.
Nurses missing from reform discussion. In all the talk about saving the ship known as our healthcare system from sinking, one group of care providers has been conspicuously missing. The nurses, according to The New York Times.
Material from MedCity News was used in this report.
