Recent data provided by the nation’s largest health insurance companies reveals that a provision of the Affordable Care Act – or Obamacare – is bringing big numbers of the uninsured into the health care insurance system. And they are precisely the uninsured that we want– the young people who tend not to get sick. The provision of the law that permits young adults under 26, long the largest uninsured demographic in the country, to remain on their parents’ health insurance program resulted in at least 600,000 newly insured Americans during the first quarter of 2011. Wellpoint, the nation’s...

A federal judge in New Jersey tossed out a challenge to President Obama’s health care law Thursday, ruling that the pair behind the lawsuit lacked legal standing. Nicholas E. Purpura and Donald R. Laster, both of New Jersey, filed the suit last September seeking to derail the law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will go into full effect in 2014. The law, Obama’s signature domestic achievement, has already ignited a storm of controversy over its cost and the waivers granted since it was enacted a year ago. The pair’s suit was among nearly two dozen...

By Lisa Lerer Sarah Palin, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said the U.S. is at a “crisis point” as the Obama administration pursues policies that will lead to “decline and defeat.” “If President Reagan were alive today” the hills in California “would echo with his outrage” over the enactment of President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, she said last night at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California. The 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee and former Alaska governor gave the keynote address at a Young America’s Foundation tribute to the centennial...

By SUSAN W. SALMOND and WILLIAM L. HOLZEMER On Nov. 30, the National Summit to Advance Health through Nursing launched a nationwide effort to implement recommended changes to assist Americans facing health care reform. New Jersey will be one of five target states for initial action and results. We strongly support these recommendations, presented in the Institute of Medicine (www.iom.edu) report. They represent an urgent call for transformational changes in how we manage and provide health care. The IOM, after a two-year study, concluded that nurses have the capacity to be a major catalyst for...

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer Another federal judge has upheld the legality of the sweeping health care reform requirement that most Americans purchase health insurance by 2014. Wednesday’s decision from Virginia adds to the legal muddle over the constitutionality of the landmark legislation championed by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress. In a 54-page decision, Judge Norman Moon dismissed a pending lawsuit and ruled that government authority to oversee “individuals’ decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate...

Another therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells is headed for clinical trials. Advanced Cell Technology Inc. said Monday that the Food and Drug Administration has cleared the way for its Phase I/II trial of retinal cells for patients with Stargardt’s macular dystrophy, a childhood version of macular degeneration. Get “Favorite Things” philosophy hope in a jar at Beauty.com! Up to 12 patients will be enrolled at several sites across the country, including the Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Ore., the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, and UMDNJ...

By: JO CIAVAGLIA One consumer group found more than one-third of state insurance bureaus reported “much higher” health insurance fraud last year. A person bearing a government ID badge appears at your door with a sales pitch that goes something like this: By law, all Americans are now required to obtain health insurance. You have 30 days to comply or face jail time. Sign here to buy your coverage. The claim sounds legitimate. Most people have heard something, somewhere, about the new federal health care law and how it requires that everyone carry health insurance. But those coverage...

Many conservatives running for Congress, including many who won, say they want to revisit health care reform – repeal or tweak or defund or something. Americans do remain split on the legislation overall – CNN said exit polls showed half want it repealed and the other half want it expanded or maintained. Though, advocates point out that many of the individual elements remain popular, such as keeping kids up to 26 on their parent’s health insurance, closing the Medicare prescription benefit “donut hole,” banning insurers from bumping those who get sick out of coverage and not covering...

By N.C. Aizenman – Washington Post Staff Writer A federal judge in Michigan ruled Thursday that the new health-care overhaul law is constitutional, rejecting an argument that Congress lacked the power to create the legislation’s “individual mandate,” which requires virtually all Americans to purchase health insurance. Other federal courts have already dismissed some challenges to the law on technical grounds – ruling, for instance, that the plaintiffs lacked standing. However, the decision issued Thursday by Judge George Caram Steeh of the Eastern District of Michigan...

By N.C. Aizenman The Obama administration awarded $159.1 million in grants Thursday to educational programs that train nurses and geriatric specialists as well as those that recruit and support students from minority groups that are underrepresented in those fields. The grants, which include new and continuing funding, build on multimillion dollar investments called for under the new health-care overhaul law in order to address a growing shortage of primary care workers. A 2008 report by the Council on Physician and Nurse Supply said schools would need to produce 30,000 nurses annually to offset...