Obama Welcomes Drug Lobby to White House Table

Tom Hamburger of the LATimes writes, "the pharmaceutical industry, once condemned by the president as a source of healthcare problems, has become a White House partner." Billy Tauzin, once a target for the President during his campaign has "Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn't try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail."

Read the article, to find out more about how Tauzin is influencing the President's healthcare decisions.

Obama gives powerful drug lobby a seat at healthcare table

Healthcare Cuts Before Obama

At a time when the economy is sinking, jobs are diminishing and the poor are being locked out of health care that they so desperately need--many struggling states are cutting health care. With rising costs and corrupt state governments, these states are in a financial firestorm that has left the neediest individuals and families without the health care that they so desperately need. Look at this list from LATimes.com:

Illinois' senior citizens are facing the traumatic prospect of being moved from nursing homes teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as the homes wait for months to be paid by the floundering state government.

South Carolina has cut treatment for low-income women under 40 with breast or cervical cancer and stopped providing nutritional supplements for people with kidney failure.

In southern Nevada, cancer patients without health coverage no longer have a place to get chemotherapy after the state's largest public hospital stopped providing outpatient oncology services.

Will the Obama administration be able to save these state's health care systems with new initiatives? How can this situation be remedied?

U.S. Healthcare Spending Slows

With the rocky economy, more individuals and families are spending less on healthcare coverage and costs. The LATimes covers this stating that, the mild slowdown -- due in part to less growth in drug spending -- was a rare bit of good news as Washington policymakers begin to debate how to reshape the nation's healthcare system, a top priority of congressional Democrats and the new administration.

So good news may come out of this minor slow down. What areas of healthcare do you think are slowing the most?

Do you think we'll see a rise in healthcare in 2009? We'd like to hear your thoughts.