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"The situation in Somalia is particularly worrying because the Somali displaced people are settled in areas of the country that are too dangerous for the humanitarian worker to access."

The Florida urologist who won't take care of patients who supported healthcare reform is asserting that Hospice care will be substantially harmed by Medicare cuts. This may be true, but there are also new provisions in the bill which should help hospice patients as well. The true effects of health care reform on hospice care will not be known for years.

President Obama says: So I'll be honest with you; I don't know how passing health care will play politically, but I do know that it is the right thing to do. It's right for our families, it's right for our businesses, it's right for the United States of America.

Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha died yesterday of complcations of laprascopic cholecystectomy, in which the gallbladder is removed using specialized instruments through very small incisions in the skin.

Because of the known risks inherent in any surgery, the decision to have surgery must be made very carefully.

In his State of the Union address, president Obama said "According the the congressional budget office...our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as 1 trillion dollars over the next two decades." Watch his comments about healthcare here.

Physician-politician Howard Dean has been speaking out against the Senate health care bill, saying that it is a gift to insurance companies and that it will put this company on a trajectory for disaster. Columnists and bloggers from around the country agree.

Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande hosts a New England Journal of Medicine Round Table about health care costs, including the concepts of a public option, a single payer system, and what we want to spend our health care dollars on. One guest says, quite condescendingly, ""There's no one who thinks seriously about this who thinks that thinks a consumer based approach can control costs in a fundamental way." We disagree.

The participants in this thought-provoking roundtable discussion hosted by surgeon Atul Gawande brings up issues of rationing, and the healthcare payment system, including a global payment system. No guest considers the possibility that the payment system problems and rationing could be addressed in one fell swoop by reverting to a payment model closer to one in which the patient feels the cost of health care in their own pocket.

Congressman Maurice Hinchey makes the shocking allegation that Carmelo Rodgriguez' death from malignant melanoma was the result of the military's intentional mishandling of his medical case in order to keep him fighting.

American conservative political analyst Bill Kristol, founder and editor of the Weekly Standard, was interviewed on the Daily Show by Jon Stewart. He finds himself "trapped" when he says that American soldiers deserve better health care than the rest of us.

Nobel Prize Winning Economists Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman share their views on health care reform. Krugman couches the argument in moral terms, while Friedman says that there is no role for the government in the provision or financing of routine health care. While Friedman's free market advocacy is appealing, it falls down in the face of the truth: everyone in the US already pays for everyone else's health care, so we may as well do it more systematically.

Obama speaks to AMA about the costs of health care, projected to be $1 trillion, to be paid for by cuts to medicare advantage programs, by denying hospitals payments for readmissions, streamlining FDA approvals for generic medications, and cuts to medicare and medicaid spending.

In this fascinating preview clip, filmmakers interview patients, health care workers and government officials to understand the barriers to healthcare in rural India.

Australia has made plans to quarantine travelers suspected of having swine flu.

In this excerpt from his State of the Union Address, president Obama speaks to the need to revisit the health care crisis.

This YouTube post is an excerpt from "Sicko", fascinating look at the politics and the money trail of medicine in America.

Ms. McCaughey engages in right wing demagoguery as she sounds the alarm bell over the alleged health care provisions in the stimulus plan.