Barack Obama
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Is Robert A. McDonald Fit to be VA Secretary?
President Obama's nominee to head the [VA] is now Robert A McDonald, former CEO of Procter and Gamble...Yet aside from a single article on the Ring of Fire web site, all news coverage and discussion so far has ignored Mr McDonald's previous experience in health care leadership, but also that his relevant track record ought to raise questions about his fitness for the VA position.
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Is The 1.5+ Trillion Dollar HITECH Act a Failure?
Hopefully, the public statements made by President Obama and Vice President Biden will lead to a public debate over the monumental problems that the HITECH Act and proprietary EHR vendors have caused the American people. While the press continues to report the figure of $35 billion as the cost of implementing EHRs, that figure does not tell the entire story. Perhaps the next step is to provide accountability and transparency. That would start with firm numbers regarding the real costs of EHR implementations forced on an unprepared healthcare system by the HITECH Act.
- The Future Is Open
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Is the Consolidation of the Food Industry Turning Lettuce into a Weapon of Mass Destruction?
In the summer of 2006, consumers across the country began falling sick from a particularly nasty strain of Escherichia coli bacteria, known as 0157:H7. Not all E. coli bacteria are dangerous, but 0157:H7 belongs to the Shiga toxin-producing group of pathogens (known as STEC), which can cause severe, and sometimes fatal, illness. By early October, 199 people in twenty-six states had fallen ill, resulting in 102 hospitalizations and thirty-one cases of kidney failure. Three people died, including a two-year-old boy in Utah...
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Is The Presidential Election Healthcare's Own Perfect Storm For EHRs?
When two opposing forces collide, the results can be devastating. Earlier this week Hurricane Sandy — a warm air, warm-water storm moving up from the south — met up with a bitterly cold nor’easter, creating a monster storm that battered the East Coast. On the eve of the presidential election, healthcare leaders cannot help but wonder if the industry facing its own perfect storm. Read More »
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Is Today the Day When Obama Starts Explaining ACA’s Benefits to Americans?
Whether you agree with Obamacare or not, it’s quite clear that the current administration has done a rather lousy job spreading the word about its advantages – even tangible benefits that Americans already enjoy. Read More »
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It's Official: White House CTO Todd Park Leaves Post To Recruit Tech Talent From Silicon Valley
Todd Park is leaving his job as the second-ever federal chief technology officer to assume new duties -- including recruiting tech talent for government -- from California, the White House confirmed Thursday...
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John McCain, Lindsey Graham Slam CIA Spying As 'Worse Than Criminal'
The Central Intelligence Agency's infiltration and possible manipulation of computers belonging to Senate oversight investigators was "worse than criminal" and needs to be investigated, two key Republican senators charged Friday...
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Judgment Day: Dr. Margaret Flowers on What Follows the Supreme Court Ruling on Healthcare
Margaret Flowers, MD, is a pediatrician whose exasperation with the American healthcare system turned her into a single-payer activist. In 2009 she was arrested at the Senate Round Table on Health Insurance for attempting to speak on behalf of a single-payer plan when single-payer had been cut out of the conversation. Read More »
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Kenyan Tech Star Ushahidi Makes Major Design Updates
Ushahidi, one of the earliest Kenyan tech success stories, has unveiled a major redesign of its key features and its look-and-feel. Launched in December 2008 during the violence that followed the disputed Kenyan elections, Ushahidi (which means “witness” in Swahili) is ranked with M-Pesa as one of Kenya’s greatest start-up successes. US President Barack Obama praised Kenya’s tech entrepreneurs during a visit to the country his father was born in last July: “This continent needs to be a future hub of global growth, not just African growth”...
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Latest TPP Leak Raises Burning Questions About Implications for U.S. Health Care System
The latest secret document from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations – published today by WikiLeaks – shows that the pact could expose Medicare to pharmaceutical company attacks and constrain future policy reforms, including the ability of the U.S. government to curb rising and unsustainable drug prices, according to Public Citizen. The concerns about the U.S. health care system arising from this latest leak add to the litany of reasons that nearly all Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and a substantial bloc of House GOP oppose Fast Track trade authority for the TPP.
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Latinos Aren't Interested In Stem Fields And That's A Problem For Everyone
While there has been some positive progress in improving interest and aptitude among students in science, technology, engineering and math careers, the number of available jobs in such fields continues to significantly outpace the number of available peoplel qualified for those jobs, according to a new analysis...
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LymeDisease.org Invited to Attend White House for Precision Medicine Summit
LymeDisease.org, the leading research advocacy organization for Lyme disease, announced today that Lorraine Johnson, chief executive officer, has been invited by the White House to participate in the upcoming Precision Medicine Initiative Summit on Thursday, February 25, in Washington, DC. Johnson, whose organization recently launched MyLymeData, the first patient-powered research project for chronic Lyme disease, will join government officials, academia, researchers, and other patient advocacy groups to discuss new and emerging approaches being taken to advance precision medicine and improve patient care...
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Medicaid Nation
THE Supreme Court upheld much of Barack Obama’s health reform in June, but struck down an important part. Mr Obama wanted to expand Medicaid, the state-federal programme for the poor, to a broader swathe of Americans. Under current law, state Medicaid programmes only have to cover specific subsets, such as pregnant women... Read More »
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Meet The Geeks: The D.C. Tech Corps's Leading Edge
Here's why these techies chose to leave startups and top tech companies to serve the public good. When President Dwight Eisenhower established NASA in 1958, he called on the country's top scientists to bring their talents to the government. At the time, outer space was still a vast, unexplored mystery, and by joining NASA, astronauts had the opportunity to discover the rest of the universe "for the benefit of all," to use the organization's motto...
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Memo To President Obama: HealthCare.gov Is More Than Just A Website
In explaining the administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama sought to put the botched website in some perspective: “We did not wage this long contentious battle just around a website,” he noted. “That’s not what this was about.” Read More »
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