The Senate has begun debate, which Democrats hope to bring to a quick close, on a health care reform reconciliation bill that "fixes" parts of the law President Obama signed Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal: Some of the changes being debated "are significant. The implementation of an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans to help pay for the wider health-care overhaul would be delayed until 2018...

Professor Peter Furness, President of the Royal College of Pathologists commenting on the Tobacco Advisory Group of Royal College of Physicians report, Passive Smoking and Children, said: The Royal College of Pathologists fully endorses this report. The prevalence of diseases - such as asthma - in children exposed to passive smoking is of great concern...

Now that health insurance reform legislation has passed, President Obama and Congress must urgently turn their attention to ensuring quality maternal care for every American woman to reduce rising deaths and complications during pregnancy and childbirth, Amnesty International said...

Former President Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing "that U.S. investments in fighting [HIV/]AIDS, malaria and other diseases in underdeveloped nations save lives and play a vital role in improving America's image abroad," the Associated Press reports.

Viatronix Incorporated, a Stony Brook, New York, based company announced that its V3D-Colon software is used at the National Naval Medical Center where the President's annual physical was done. "Our software is being utilized at several DOD facilities since the landmark Virtual Colonoscopy clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine back in December 2003," said Zaffar Hayat, President of Viatronix Incorporated.

Former President Bill Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on Thursday launched MASSIVEGOOD - an initiative that allows travelers to make a $2 donation "to fight deadly diseases whenever they buy a plane ticket, book a hotel room or rent a car," Bloomberg/BusinessWeek reports (Varner, 3/4)...

The following summarizes selected women's health-related blog entries. ~ "Obama Presents A Health Care Plan But Abortion Issue Remains Unsettled," Sarah Kliff, Newsweek's "The Gaggle": President Obama's health reform proposal is "a huge step forward for the Democrats," but abortion coverage "promises to become a linchpin issue in the future negotiations," Kliff writes...

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said that the AMA welcomes the Government announcement of $9.1 million for new Indigenous mothers and baby services as the latest instalment in its commitment to close the gap on Indigenous health inequality by 2030.

At the White House on Tuesday, US President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum establishing a task force to address the nation's growing childhood obesity epimedic, turned to his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama and said "it's done honey", and she replied "now we work"...