In a letter of congratulations, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told Obama he's already got health reform on his radar.
THCB regular Michael Millenson doesn't understand Baucus' strategy.
Here’s Millenson's two theories on what this could mean:
Scenario No. 1: The Republicans in Congress, chastened by their election losses, join in a lame-duck effort with Democrats who, in the a spirit of forgiveness and comity, help pass a bipartisan health care reform plan before Christmas. President Bush, fresh from long weeks of prayer and repentance, signs the bill on the morning of January 20 with President-elect Obama looking on. Bush hands him a pen, and then they step out onto the Capitol Rotunda for the swearing-in.
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8
November
On THCB today Maggie Mahar basically tells the health reform crowd to be patient. But two members of the unreconstructed left in other venues don’t agree. In the NY Times Paul Krugman says that deficit spending is OK, and correctly points out that Obama has a real mandate to fix the underlying problems of middle America (and yes that would include health care). And yes polling data shows that on balance America is as liberal now as it was in the 1960s. 35 years of blind-ish belief in conservatism is more or less over.
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8
November
Sermo has very quickly become the big Kahuna in the physician social network space. So big in fact that its rivals trumpet how different they are from it in their models and approach. Yet it was only two years ago that Sermo was still putting a little votive candle in a net for every doctor who signed up—and the major problem it was facing was corralling the packs of dogs charging around its office in a basement in Cambridge, MA. A lot has happened in under two years, but I understand animal control is still a major function! So we thought that having Daniel Palestrant tell us where Sermo is now would be a great way to kick off day two at Health 2.0 and to talk about the new deal with Bloomberg. (The net broke at around 12,000 candles I believe, and no dogs were mentioned in the making of this video, sadly!)
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8
November