Year: 2013

Oregon, a state that fully embraced the Affordable Care Act, is enduring one of the rockiest rollouts of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, with an inoperative online exchange that has yet to enroll a single subscriber, requiring thousands to apply on paper instead. Unlike most other states, Oregon set an ambitious course to make its insurance exchange, dubbed Cover Oregon, an “all-in-one” website for every individual seeking health coverage, including those who are eligible for Medicaid. But instead of serving as a national model, Oregon’s experience has emerged as a cautionary tale, inviting comparisons to technical glitches that have plagued other state-run portals and the federal government’s website for those states lacking exchanges of their own. Oregon’s online exchange has remained inaccessible to the public, requiring the state to sign up applicants the old-fashioned way, using paper forms.

By Roberta Rampton and Lewis Krauskopf WASHINGTON (Reuters) – State insurance commissioners told President Barack Obama on Wednesday that his effort to stem a wave of insurance cancellations caused by his signature healthcare law could lead to higher premiums. Obama met with representatives from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to discuss the "fix" he came up with last week to calm the uproar surrounding millions of cancellation notices sent to holders of individual health insurance policies no longer legal under the healthcare law, known as Obamacare. While taking responsibility for the troubled rollout of his law and apologizing for the promises he made that were not being kept, Obama sought last week to address the problem of canceled plans by giving insurers the option to extend them By one year, even if they did not meet minimum standards under the law. While individual state commissioners have no legal obligation to go along with Obama's wishes, the White House move effectively put the onus on them for cancellations caused by the administration's law.

Anita Gold says since she began following a diet for diabetics, she's lost gone from a size twelve back to a … She says food is just as good when you eat healthy.

After Tracy Rud of Atlanta was rushed to Northside Hospital-Cherokee for urgent gall bladder surgery in April, she received a seven-page bill that totaled nearly $40,000. “I wanted to cry,” she told ABC News. “I just thought, ‘This is way too high.’ … I was…

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – Total health spending fell in one of three OECD nations between 2009 and 2011, with poor people in countries hardest hit by the financial crisis at risk of longer-term problems due to reduced access to medicines and check-ups, the OECD said on Thursday. The drop is a sharp reversal of strong growth in health spending in the years prior to the financial crisis, the Paris-based organisation said, and makes it all the more important that governments work to make healthcare systems more productive, efficient and affordable. Spending per capita fell in 11 of 33 OECD countries between 2009 and 2011, according to the 2013 "Health at a Glance" report. The OECD cautioned that short-term benefits to budgets are likely to be greatly outweighed by the longer-term impacts on health, and health spending.

One of my favorite movies is (500) Days of Summer. As I've been reflecting on my own past 500 days, it's amazing to think of all that has transpired since Day One. November 24th will be Day 500 in my own ongoing relationship… with cancer.

Fred Sanger, a double Nobel Prize-winning British biochemist who pioneered research into the human genome, has died at the age of 95, the University of Cambridge said on Wednesday. Sanger, who once described himself as "just a chap who messed about in his lab", worked with colleagues to develop a rapid method of DNA sequencing – a way to "read DNA" – which became the forerunner for the work on mapping the human genome. He won his first Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1958 for work on determining the structure of insulin and the second 22 years later for his work on DNA, the material that carries all the information about how living things look and function. Only four people in history have been awarded the Nobel Prize twice.