Sept 28, 2009 By James Pinkerton Are we doomed to face ever-increasing health care costs because people want more treatment? Not if we see health care and medicine as dynamic and if we recognize that the variables of health and medicine can be changed.  In the first part of this two-part piece, I noted that [...]

Obama’s first public act in office was to order more government transparency, but federal agencies are still trying to hide information sought by reporters, news outlets say. Sept 30, 2009 WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s new standards of openness in the federal government have not trickled down to some of its agencies, where officials have [...]

Sept 30, 2009 WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama, in an effort to stimulate the economy and support critical research, will announce $5 billion in grants when he visits the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday, according to an administration official. The money, which comes from Recovery Act funds, is aimed at supporting “12,000 critical research [...]

Sept 29, 2009 By Charles Cooper (AP Photo/Ali Shaigan, Fars) It doesn’t approach the venomous level of the Who Lost China debate in the early 1950s. But give it some time. After noisy battles over federal bailouts, Supreme Court appointments and health care reform, Iran has emerged as the latest Rorschach test for an already [...]

Sept 29, 2009 By Jonathan Cohn (The New Republic)  Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic. “You can’t really have reform without a public option,” former governor Howard Dean, a prominent public-option advocate, said recently. “If you really want to fix the health care system, you’ve got to give the public the [...]

Sept 29, 2009 By Stephanie Condon A key Senate panel shot down two amendments on Tuesday afternoon to add a government-run health insurance plan to its health care bill. Getting to the crux of the nation’s current health care debate – whether there should be more government involvement in health care — the Senate Finance [...]

By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent September 29, 2009 Remember the controversy over the Pentagon policy of not allowing the press to take pictures of the flag-draped caskets of American war dead as they arrived in the United States? Critics accused President Bush of trying to hide the terrible human cost of the wars in [...]

Sept 30, 2009 Saying They Should Be Given A Choice, Employees Rally In Albany, Around State, Chant “No Forced Shots!” Protesters Hold Signs That Read: “The State Doesn’t Own My Body’” Workers are being told to either get the swine flu vaccine or lose their jobs. New York is the first state in the country [...]

Sept 29, 2009 By LOLITA C. BALDOR (AP) – 14 hours ago WASHINGTON — A top U.S. military commander says troops will begin getting required swine flu shots in the next week to 10 days. Active duty forces deploying to war zones and other critical areas are at the front of the vaccine line. Air [...]

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 Phone Calls Add to Din Over Loans Congressional Investigators Ask for More on Countrywide VIP Mortgage Program By JOHN R. EMSHWILLER The discovery that Countrywide Financial Corp. recorded phone conversations with borrowers in a controversial mortgage program that included public officials — and that those recordings have been destroyed — has prompted [...]