Hump Day Headlines

Reports are that the supercommittee isn't making much progress. They are half-way through the short time they were given to come up with a solution, and it seems that they are still pretty stuck, with the GOP refusing to budge on taxes and the Dems refusing to discuss entitlement reform unless taxes are on the table, as well. There's no lack of ideas, as members of Congress who are not on the supercommittee provide advice.

The federal government wants to relax regulations of hospitals that would save providers $1.1 billion per year. While this sounds okay, I always worry -- wasn't there a reason we passed those regulations in the first place? If so, won't somebody suffer if we eliminate them?

Hospital stays for heart failure have decreased by 30% in ten years, saving billions of dollars, and giving us cause for some optimism about our ability to reduce health care costs.

Here's some more on the awful story of a woman who held four mentally disabled people chained to a boiler in her locked basement. Breaks my heart.

There's an experimental malaria vaccine that appears to cut the incidence of the disease in half. What a great thing this would be.

And that's all I have this morning -- a light news day. Let's hope it's a good one! Jennifer