When a colonoscopy ranges from $450 to $10,000, there’s room for plenty of savings By Bernadine Healy, M.D. As President Obama said again in his recent address to Congress, an imperative for health reform is containing runaway health costs. But the elephant in the room that is a real driver of costs is something few people are talking about: the variable and hush-hush pricing of medical goods and services, set by the government or negotiated by insurers and largely kept secret from the patients ultimately responsible for their bills. Look at a colonoscopy: When paid by Medicare, the fee...

Foes of health care reform are making up all kinds of scurrilous nonsense about Canada’s universal health care system. Canadians have slightly longer life expectancy than their American counterparts and are just as likely to survive heart attacks, breast and cervical cancer, and childhood leukemia: Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) — Opponents of overhauling U.S. health care argue that Canada shows what happens when government gets involved in medicine, saying the country is plagued by inferior treatment, rationing and months-long queues. The allegations are wrong by almost every measure, according...

By Ceci Connolly and Michael D. Shear Washington Post Staff Writers President Obama sought to blanket the airwaves Sunday with an impassioned defense of his health reform effort during back-to-back broadcasts of taped interviews on five morning news programs. In interviews conducted Friday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Obama acknowledged being “humbled” by the challenge of “breaking through” in the complicated and emotional battle over health-care reform. “I think there have been times where I have said I’ve got to step up my game in terms of talking...

CBC News Canada U.S. President Barack Obama was promoting health-care reform across the airwaves Sunday in interviews with five television networks — reassuring middle-income Americans they won’t face big taxes increases to pay for the plan. Obama is trying to win back momentum for his besieged proposals. He sat down with CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC and the Hispanic network Univision on Friday to tape interviews for programs broadcast on Sunday. A Gallup poll last week found that 60 per cent of respondents do not believe Obama can expand health-care coverage without raising taxes on the middle...

Baltimore Business Journal Nearly 45,000 people die each year due to a lack of health insurance, according to a study in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. The study, published Thursday and carried out by Harvard researchers and funded by a research grant, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from 25 percent in 1993. The study was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization that favors a single-payer system. It takes into account socioeconomics, health...

By Ann Gerhart In an unusually personal speech, Michelle Obama on Friday described health-insurance reform as “very much a women’s issue” and said the current system is preventing women from achieving “true equality” in the country. Appearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the first lady urged a group of about 100 women from the health-care industry and rights organizations to press for immediate reform. In two years of campaigning, Obama said, she heard countless stories from women across the...

STEVE LeBLANC Associated Press Writer BOSTON (AP) — Among the many hurdles facing President Barack Obama’s plan to revamp the nation’s health care system is a shortage of primary care physicians — those legions of overworked doctors who provide the front line of medical care for both the sick and those hoping to stay healthy. As Massachusetts’ experience shows, extending health care to 50 million uninsured Americans will only further stress the system and could force many of those newly insured back into costly emergency rooms for routine care if they can’t find a primary...

By JONATHAN WEISMAN CINCINNATI — President Barack Obama shifted into campaign mode Monday, declaring that the time for debate on health care is over and vowing to move fast to enact a sweeping overhaul of the system this year. Speaking at a boisterous Labor Day rally of AFL-CIO members, Mr. Obama led the first “fired up, ready to go” chant of his presidency, reaching back to a hallmark of his presidential campaign. He recounted a low moment from his quest for the White House to try to seize control of a health-care debate that strayed from his grasp this summer. “Every...

By JULIA PRESTON The Obama administration took an overhaul of the country’s immigration laws off its legislative agenda this year, but the prickly issue of public benefits for illegal immigrants has resurfaced in the health care debate. During the summer recess, members of Congress faced persistent questions from constituents worried that health care changes could leave taxpayers footing medical bills for illegal immigrants. President Obama has not been able to extinguish the doubts despite giving repeated assurances that illegal immigrants would be excluded from any subsidized benefits under...

By GARY FIELDS WASHINGTON — Top aides to President Barack Obama said that part of the president’s Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress on health-care overhaul is aimed at building support for the so-called public option, but they stopped short of saying it was essential. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” press secretary Robert Gibbs, said Sunday that Mr. Obama “will talk about the public option and why he believes and continues to believe that it is a valuable component of providing choice and competition that helps individuals and small businesses at...