Affordable, secure health insurance through insurance exchange and Medicaid expansion could help young adults get needed health care and protect them from medical debt

The RAND Corporation today launched an online tool to provide policymakers and interested parties with a unique way of understanding and evaluating the effects and unintended consequences of health care reform proposals certain to be introduced in the new 111th Congress and beyond.

President-elect Barack Obama has nominated William V. Coor, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a nonprofit group that seeks to reduce tobacco use among children and adults, for deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the New York Times reported Tuesday.

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the former Senate majority leader has indicated he wants the job, three sources close to the transition told CNN Wednesday.

Leaders in health care and health care policy feel strongly that the way we pay for health care in the U.S. must be fundamentally reformed.

In order to achieve comprehensive health care reform, states cannot do it alone. States and the federal government must partner and collaborate to overcome barriers and challenges to create high-quality, affordable health care, according to the authors of a commentary in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on the Health of the Nation.

A proposal to implement a value-added tax for universal health insurance vouchers would also provide for significant decreases in other taxes, according to the authors of a commentary in the October 22/29 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on the Health of the Nation. They add that this plan would create incentives for cost-containment and health care quality.

Two years after the implementation of a health care reform law aimed at providing health coverage for nearly all Massachusetts residents, public support for the law remains high. According to a new poll by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, over two-thirds (69%) of Massachusetts residents support the law.

The Federal Government has announced details of its promised health and hospital reform commission.

A new report released by IBM today paints a bleak picture of the future for U.S. health insurers unless they make radical changes in how they do business. IBM is one of the largest self-insured US employers, bearing financial risk for the health of more than 350,000 employees and their dependants.

Research published in PLoS Medicine examines the impact of the UK government's new contract with general practitioners (family doctors) on the care of people with diabetes. The research, conducted in Wandsworth in London, found that improvements had occurred, but black people of Caribbean origin were not benefiting to the extent of other ethnic groups.

Reforms introduced as a result of the Sally Clark case could lead to a halving in the number of cases of unexplained infant deaths >and a positive legacy emerging from tragedy, says a feature in this week's BMJ.