Todays-Healthy-Living

A Spokane, Wash., man was arrested Wednesday for making detailed death threats about the family of abortion provider Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado, the New York Times reports. Hern said that although he has received death threats in the past, he has been taking the threats more seriously since the May murder of his friend and colleague George Tiller.

Lost in the debate over key issues is the fact that lawmakers working on health care reform agree on major parts of reform, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Just like in earlier attempts to overhaul the American health system, opponents have turned to scare tactics, a strategy with a success rate in the history of blocking health reform, NPR reports. "It's really a case of deja vu," political scientist Jonathan Oberlander tells NPR. "You hear in today's debate echoes of the past that extend all the way to the early part of the 20th century.

Town hall meetings have tempered since early August, but some lawmakers continue to face raucous crowds, Roll Call reports. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., a vocal conservative and opponent of the Democrats reform plans, "faced a volatile crowd [Thursday] looking for answers on the future of health care in America" (Palmer, 8/28). But Rep.

Politicians have targeted the insurance industry in their pitch to overhaul health care. House speaker Nancy Pelosi went as far as calling insurers "villains" and "immoral." "I'm certainly not villainous or immoral in any way, shape or form," Max Shireman, a project manager for the insurer Humana, told The New York Times.

Small businesses are already strapped by health care costs and are concerned about the efforts on reform, according to the Baltimore Sun. "As Congress works to fix the health care system, controlling the growing tab for medical insurance is an especially important concern for the nation's 6 million small businesses, whose support is crucial to any reform.

Two new reports from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality made news Thursday. One addresses the consequences of leaving the hospital against the doctor's orders, while the other notes that health spending on seniors rose by over $100 billion between 1996 and 2006. McKnight's Long-Term Care News: "The U.S. spent an estimated $333.

Obama Plan Is Stealth For Single Payer System The San Jose Mercury News But the president's rhetoric doesn't match the reality of his proposals. In fact, he and congressional Democrats have designed their reform proposals to put the government in charge of Americans' health care - albeit gradually (Sally Pipes, 8/27).

"Africa is mismanaging its water resources," according to scientists who are in Kenya at the Sustainable Water Conference, which is organized by the Pan Africa Chemistry Network, VOA News reports.

The Economist examines how Africa's economic growth is resulting in a demographic transition "that others have already traced: as people get richer, they have fewer children" and poses the question: "Can Africa capitalise on the demographic dividend?" Despite slowed population growth, food and w