“Health care” on The Daily Caller

Sure she wears tu tu’s adorned with sequins and dyes her hair blue, but “California Girl” Katy Perry opened up to Rolling Stone about serious issues, like health care, in the cover story of this month’s issue. Backstage at her candy-coated ‘California Dreams Tour,’ Perry spoke candidly to the mag about everything from body image to politics. (more)

In one of the first concrete steps to remake the way medical care is delivered, hospitals are competing to hire primary-care physicians, trying to lure them from their private practices to work as salaried employees alongside specialists. (more)

In what’s appearing to be a last-minute move to avoid scrutiny, President Barack Obama’s administration announced late Friday that it is doing away with Obamacare waivers. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Removing a potential political distraction ahead of next year’s elections, the Obama administration Friday announced an early end to a health care waiver program that has come under fire from congressional Republicans. (more)

The Democratic National Committee is attacking Tim Pawlenty for giving a paid speech on healthcare reform to America’s Health Insurance Plans’ annual conference Thursday in San Francisco, accusing him of being in the pocket of the health insurers. (more)

The Obama administration is ready to announce Friday that Medicaid benefits will be extended to cover same-sex couples. (more)

Oral arguments were heard Wednesday in the lawsuit brought by Florida and 25 other states challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the health care law.  (more)

The Daily Caller has learned the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) never had the authority to issue waivers from Obamacare’s annual limit requirements. (more)

Voters are still reeling from President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the nation’s health care system, so it’s no surprise that as they begin examining in earnest the records of his would-be Republican replacements, they will devote a great measure of their time to health care reform. In the record of former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, with whom I worked closely as the speaker of Utah’s House of Representatives, voters will find the marketplace reforms that our national health care system desperately needs. (more)

It’s getting personal now. In a shift still evolving, federal enforcers are targeting individual executives in health care fraud cases that used to be aimed at impersonal corporations. (more)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont still has “a few challenges” ahead to meet its goal of a universal health care system this decade, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Thursday as he signed into law the bill designed to make the state the nation’s first with fully publicly funded health care. (more)

On the same day that Democrats won a special election in New York’s 26th district that party strategists said would be a telling referendum on the Republican effort to overhaul Medicare, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan released a video to further explain his reform plan in an effort to combat the Democratic talking point that the GOP wants to “kill” one of the nation’s most popular programs. (more)

Providing every American with access to health care is a laudable goal. Unfortunately, during the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — otherwise known as “Obamacare” — the politicians and media lost sight of this goal and became distracted by news-bite accusations about “death panels,” government paying for abortion and doctors cutting off legs for large fees. The result was a bloated, unfocused, confusing and indecipherable bill that even a year later continues to shock us with its costs. (more)

Maybe you can’t fight city hall, but Terrance Kalley isn’t fighting city hall, he’s fighting the federal government. His wife, Arlene, has breast cancer. She relies on the late-stage cancer drug Avastin to survive. Insurance covers the cost of the drug despite its expense, which is significant. But if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules the way it’s looking like it might, Kalley’s wife, and thousands of other women fighting breast cancer, could die. An FDA advisory panel has recommended delisting Avastin from official government formularies for late-stage breast cancer treatment due to cost concerns. If this happens, Avastin will no longer be covered by Medicare. And private insurance companies, which follow the government’s lead, would likely deny coverage for the drug. This would make this crucial drug available only to those with the means to afford its hefty price. But Kalley isn’t just sitting by while bureaucrats contemplate his wife’s fate; he’s taking action. (more)

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich delivered a speech at the Brookings Institution Friday on the need for a fundamental re-consideration of the nation’s healthcare system. (more)

The GOP’s Medicare reform plan is putting Democrats on the defense, prompting the White House to turn up the volume on its claim that government experts can be trusted to manage the medical sector. (more)

The House on Thursday afternoon approved two resolutions that would amend the FY 2011 spending bill to block funding designated for Planned Parenthood and last year’s healthcare law. But House passage is largely symbolic, as the Senate is not expected to approve either of the bills when it considers them later today. (more)

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has introduced one of the most important pieces of health care legislation of this Congress: the Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized, and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2011, which would bar the federal government from using “comparative effectiveness research” — a tool used by socialized health care systems to dictate treatment based on cost rather than effectiveness. Comparative effectiveness research gives bureaucrats the excuse they need to deny coverage of a health care treatment or micromanage the practice of medicine. (more)

Public support for President Obama’s healthcare reform has dropped to the lowest it has been since the bill was first passed. (more)

The fine print of a spending deal struck by Republican and Democratic leaders late Friday to avert government shutdown shows the final bill will dismantle two key parts of Obamacare. (more)