Archives: Morning Breakouts

The Republican House to-do list also includes action by oversight committees to investigate waivers given in regard to the health law. Meanwhile, KHN details six provisions from the sweeping measure that the GOP may seek to repeal or replace.

Senate Republicans say they need to have a vote on repealing the health overhaul - even if they are going to lose - in order to be "on the record" about what they want and to make good on their campaign promises.

According to USA Today, whistle-blowers helped federal agents recover this record-breaking amount in health care fraud judgements.

The Hill reports that Wyoming senator, in weekly address, asks, "Are you better off or worse off now that the health care law has been on the books for almost a year?"

Foreign Policy's blog "The Cable" reports on Thursday's call by a group of "conservative House Republicans ... for a drastic defunding of the U.S. Agency for International Development and a host of other programs" (Rogin, 1/20).

Developing and developed countries that require children to be vaccinated against rotavirus "have significantly reduced the number of children admitted to hospitals with the disease, a report showed on Thursday," Reuters reports (Kelland, 1/20).

At the Global Poverty Summit January 16-19 in Johannesburg, South Africa, "academics, policy-makers, civil society activists and development workers ... agreed that the [U.N. Millennium Development Goals] MDGs have made a difference, but have fallen far short of the ambitious targets on poverty, education, health, gender equality and global partnership that 189 countries committed to achieving by 2015," IRIN reports.

As the WHO executive board continues meeting in Geneva this week, members "on Thursday backed efforts by the U.S. and Russia to keep the last known stocks of the smallpox virus for research to combat terrorism, in an initial debate over the fate over what is left of one of the world's most lethal pathogens," the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the article, the 34-member board supported the notion "that those stocks are needed to finish developing drugs and vaccines to counter a potential bioterror attack or accidental release of smallpox from unsanctioned stocks, officials familiar with the talks said."

Though it is generally accepted that the GOP repeal effort is finding little-to-no traction among Senate Democrats, some of these lawmakers are urging House GOP leaders to move fast to undo a small health law provision that requires business to file certain tax forms.