A government program to address a national health care crisis by placing foreign doctors in America's rural towns and inner cities is being undermined by employers - mostly U.S. doctors who profit by exploiting the physicians and diverting them from the patients who need them.

The modest spending increase that Congress approved for a popular children's health insurance program will maintain coverage for those already enrolled.

The agencies responsible for Medicaid also have been reorganized and integrated to better monitor waste. That pales next to 2005, when Spitzer's attorney general office recovered $274 million in Medicaid fraud. In New York's Medicaid program, that loss would represent $1.3 billion, according to officials in the state comptroller's office.

Virginia State University has received a $4 million federal grant to give more minority students an opportunity to study biomedical sciences and to help reduce health disparities among populations.

On December 19, the House and the Senate adjourned for the year after completing action on several end-of-the-session legislative priorities. 

Physicians who invest in their own hospitals caught a break this week when Congress declined to pass a bill that included a series of controversial restrictions.

Kids without health insurance will be able to get free wellness examinations when they enter kindergarten, through a new initiative at the West Virginia Children's Health Insurance Program, Gov. Joe Manchin said Thursday.

"ECHO developed the Alabama Type 2 Diabetes Report to serve as a useful resource for employers in their efforts to provide work-site wellness and care management programs to help employees manage chronic conditions like diabetes more effectively," said Karen Hill, President/CEO of ECHO.

Thousands of area employees and their families who get health coverage from SummaCare soon can seek care from University Hospitals without paying extra.

Congress has passed a Medicare regulation that saves two local rehabilitation hospitals from potentially losing patients.

Californians overwhelmingly support a plan to provide medical coverage to most of the state's uninsured as well as hiking the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $2 to help pay for it, according to a Field Poll released Thursday.

For the past two years, drugstore chains have been boosting their pharmacists' roles by introducing programs to help customers manage their health.

Hospital emergency departments across the United States, already struggling with overcrowding and growing patient loads, are increasingly unable to find specialists to help treat seriously injured and ill patients, according to medical experts.

Genentech appears to have resolved a dispute with ophthalmologists that will allow the company's drug Avastin to continue to be used to treat eye diseases, both sides announced on Thursday.

States are having a hard time following in the footsteps of cities that have succeeded in banning artery-clogging trans fats from restaurant menus.

Because this week, all of those interests, and many others, finalized a breakthrough agreement that could not only ensure universal health coverage in the nation's most-populous state but stamp the template for federal action that finally guarantees health insurance for all Americans.

A long-term extension approved this week for a federal children's health insurance program may force Alabama to freeze or reduce enrollment in the state's ALL Kids initiative, but it's too early to know for sure, the head of the state effort said Thursday.

On December 19, the House of Representatives passed the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 that the Senate passed the previous day, which includes relief from a scheduled 10 percent cut in physician payments, an extension of the exceptions process for Medicare outpatient therapy and other Medicare provisions.

Roadside Medical Labs and Clinics and Pilot Travel Centers have announced they are teaming up to create a coast-to-coast network of retail medical clinics to address the health risks faced by over-the-road drivers.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., focused Wednesday on her plan to deliver quality health care to every American during a campaign stop at the Heartland Acres Agribition Center.

Nearly 4 million Floridians will be eligible for discounted prescription drugs under a new program unveiled this morning by Gov. Charlie Crist.

Earlier this year, President Bush called the executives of major insurance companies to a meeting at the White House to urge them to focus on ways to improve the individual market for health insurance.

Prism Healthcare is the business expected to relieve Livingston County of the responsibility of running a nursing home.

In a move toward making health care affordable and accessible to New Jerseyans, the governor and top state officials yesterday announced an insurance plan that middle-class parents can buy for their children.