lawmakers

> After several months of wrangling over a counter-offer from Express Scripts, CVS shareholders have agreed to merge with Caremark Rx. Article

> A new report by the California HealthCare Foundation suggests that racial, cultural and ethnic factors often dictate what kind of end-of-life care California patients receive. …

Some Massachusetts lawmakers are complaining that members of the state's Health Insurance Connector agency--which oversees the state's health insurance law--should not be collecting relatively high salaries averaging $111,000 per year. Article

> The FDA is too slow to approve new drugs and …

There have been a number of reports of federal government researchers violating ethical standards by accepting money from drug and device industry players, as of late. But according to the NIH, of the 44 people accused of improper conduct, only two have faced criminal punishment--Doctors Trey Sunderland and Thomas Walsh. The rest received nothing more than a slap on the wrist or were asked to retire. Despite their conduct, the researchers in question can't be fired because they are …

"When disaster strikes, the country pulls together, making an effort to learn from the tragedy and minimize the impact of future disasters," observe Wayne Owens and Frank Richards in a CNet article. But there's an ongoing tragedy that quietly kills people every day--and many people aren't making the effort to prevent it from happening. Medical mistakes kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people each year--the equivalent, the authors observe, of two 737 jets crashing each day. They …

> A bill moving through the California Legislature would allow state regulators to fine hospitals for providing improper patient care. Originally, the fines could be as high as $100,000, but lawmakers have adjusted that to $50,000, which should make the bill easier to pass.  …

In 2005, a yearlong federal government study paid cancer doctors a combined $275 million for assessing their patient's side effects from chemotherapy. Now many other doctors and lawmakers feel that the study was a waste of money and that its findings will be of no real use to healthcare providers. Chemotherapy providers were given $130 every time they reported their patients' side effects. But HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson noted, "we identified numerous anomalies and gaps in the …

A bill moving through the California Legislature would allow state regulators to fine hospitals $100,000 for providing improper patient care. The bill would be enacted in two steps. First, regulators could slap hospitals with a $25,000 fine for endangering patients by January 1. Second, regulators could pursue the $100,000 fine, taking into consideration the hospital's history of compliance. The bill, which is supported by the SEIU, California Medical Association and California Nurses …

According to a news study, almost half of Americans have experienced significant healthcare quality issues, and three quarters say the entire U.S. healthcare system needs to be revamped. Americans are also worried about their ability to pay for future healthcare. The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, which commissioned the study, reported that 42 percent of American say they've experienced quality problems, including "poorly coordinated, inefficient, or …

In the wake of three transplant center closures--St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, UCI Medical Center in Orange, and Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco--California legislatures are hoping to pass reforms that will provide better oversight for the state's transplant program. Lawmakers were disturbed by the fact that there was no indication of a problem at Kaiser until the Los …

Congress is unlikely to cut physician reimbursement rates as mandated by a 1997 program designed to decrease Medicare spending. The 1997 program set up annual spending goals for physician reimbursement. If those goals exceeded economic growth, that was supposed to trigger reimbursement cuts because Medicare funding can't keep doctor's repayments in line with rapidly inflating healthcare costs. But lawmakers fear that decreasing doctors' pay will drive beneficiaries from the program and …