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Guidance

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As Obamacare Repeal Falters, Insurers Start to Press on Subsidies

Caroline Humer and Yasmeen Abutaleb  |  

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters)—A failed Republican effort to replace Obamacare raised new concerns on Tuesday for U.S. health insurers over whether the government will continue to fund billions of dollars in medical benefit subsidies. The healthcare bill under consideration in the U.S. Senate would have settled the funding question, but was scrapped after Republican leaders were…

Senate Republicans Reluctantly Consider Bipartisan Healthcare Talks

Amanda Becker and Susan Cornwell  |  

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—As their seven-year effort to repeal and replace Obamacare derailed in the U.S. Senate, Republicans faced the prospect of doing the once unthinkable: working with Democrats to make fixes to former President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare law. Bipartisan breakthroughs would likely come in the form of individual bills targeted at issues such as stabilizing…

Trump Urges U.S. Senate Republicans to Keep Trying on Healthcare Bill

Amanda Becker and Susan Cornwell  |  

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—U.S. President Donald Trump pushed Senate Republicans on Wednesday to take another stab at repealing or overhauling Obamacare, urging them at a White House meeting to keep their campaign promises and find a new healthcare approach. “We’re close. We’re very close,” Trump said at the start of the lunch meeting, a day after the…

U.S. Republicans Left Scrambling After Healthcare Bill Sinks Again

Susan Cornwell  |  

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The collapse of Republicans’ push to repeal and replace Obamacare in the U.S. Senate set up a possible repeal-only vote and clouded the path forward for President Donald Trump’s other domestic policy goals, rattling financial markets on Tuesday. After two Republicans said they would not back the latest Obamacare rollback bill, Senate Majority Leader…

Drug Tapering: Studies Point to Success in Some Patients

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Highlights from the 2017 EULAR Congress MADRID—Scores on the Health Assessment Questionnaire for Rheumatoid Arthritis (HAQ) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were independent predictors of whether patients could be tapered successfully from a TNF inhibitor after having reached remission of their RA, according to findings presented in a session at the Annual European Congress of…

Why We Advocate to Certain Congressional Committees over Others

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The U.S. Congress refers to the bicameral legislature, consisting of the 435 voting and six non-voting members of the House of Representatives and the 100 members of the Senate. When we visit D.C. or express our policy positions to Congress, our message would ideally reach every member. The ultimate goal is to reach all 535…

Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Risk Remains Higher for Patients with RA

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CHICAGO—Sherine E. Gabriel, MD, MSc, professor of medicine at Rutgers Medical School in Newark, N.J., and a past president of the ACR, presented an overview of cardiovascular disease and rheumatology on a Saturday morning to a room overflowing with rheumatologists attending the ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium in April. She noted that physicians have known for a…

Mind-Body Techniques for Pain Management

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CHICAGO—Delia Chiaramonte, MD, associate director of education at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, presented the newest thinking on pain to a gathering of rheumatologists at the ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium in April. She began by explaining that pain is more than nociception. Nociception stimulates nerves to…

Hepatitis Virus, Rheumatic Disease Connection Explored

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CHICAGO—Leonard H. Calabrese, DO, professor of medicine at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, presented on emerging concepts of viral infections and rheumatic disease at the ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium in April. “We are at a pivotal point in rheumatology in understanding the relationship between viruses and rheumatic disease,” began Dr. Calabrese. “It’s a very exciting time.” Dr. Calabrese…

Diagnosis, Treatment Updates for Lyme Arthritis

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CHICAGO—A clustering of cases in Lyme, Conn., in 1975 led to the discovery of Lyme disease. Allen C. Steere, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, investigated that outbreak, and he shared his knowledge of Lyme disease with rheumatologists gathered at the ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium in April. He explained that Lyme arthritis…