Archives: Morning Breakouts

In analyzing the recent Florida decision that overturned the health law, one state senate's legislative counsel determined that only a decision by the Supreme Court is binding beyond the circuit in which it is issued. Meanwhile, another legal expert offered a prediction on how Justice Roberts would vote on the measure's constitutionality.

After the Senate cleared the two-week stopgap budget bill, both sides of the fight over Planned Parenthood funding continue their lobbying campaigns.

In her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday about President Barack Obama's FY12 budget request, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also defended the State Department's FY11 budget request, Bloomberg reports. Clinton said the proposed budget cuts for FY11 would be "devastating" to U.S. national security, and U.S. programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq would see "sharp reductions" if the proposed cuts are passed. Clinton "used the hearing to warn lawmakers against the impulse to withdraw from global engagement," according to the news service.

The Lancet Infectious Diseases' Newsdesk examines how resource gaps in immunizations, health workers and financing are creating barriers to efforts to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, as highlighted in a recent Save the Children report. The article describes the role GAVI Alliance has played in increasing the number of children receiving vaccines worldwide and notes the $3.7 billion gap the group hopes to fill to expand its immunization campaign over the next four years.

In her first public address since being tapped in January to serve as executive director of President Barack Obama's Global Health Initiative (GHI), Lois Quam on Tuesday said she's been doing "a lot of listening" to officials at the State Department, USAID, PEPFAR, CDC and other agencies about the GHI. At a town-hall event hosted at the Kaiser Family Foundation's Barbara Jordan Conference Center in Washington, D.C., Quam reflected on U.S. contributions to global health successes and acknowledged that significant work remains for improving health worldwide.

British Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell on Tuesday announced major changes to the nation's international aid program based on a nine-month review of the agency's policies, Reuters reports. "This government is taking a radically different approach to aid. We want to be judged on our results, not on how much money we are spending," Mitchell said of the changes to the aid program.

The Wall Street Journal reports on how the EU's position is different from the Food and Drug Administration's policy in the U.S.

Two corporations offer very different views of how changes resulting from the health overhaul will impact their bottom lines.

With a House vote scheduled for Thursday, the White House is on record opposing the "offset" used to pay for the repeal of this reporting provision included in the health law, but it also stopped short of threatening a veto. This part of the bill also may cause it to lose bipartisan support in the lower chamber.

President Barack Obama's announcement that he would support giving states some flexibility regarding the health law's mandates received a cool reception from many Republicans.