When Medicare was created for senior citizens and America 's disabled in 1965, about half of a senior's health care spending was on doctors and the other half on hospitals.
In mid-May, the House of Representatives approved the full amount of money that the Veterans Administration said was needed for next year - plus an additional $1 billion increase for veterans' health care.
Access to basic quality health care is one of the most important domestic issues facing our nation.
Thankfully, President Obama has stood firmly behind women's health care issues by supporting coverage for contraception and reaffirming commitment to organizations like Planned Parenthood.
Under President Obama's new health care law, Medicaid will become a very different health coverage program than first envisioned.
We take our kids for physical vaccinations, dental exams, eye checkups. When do we think to take our - our son or daughter for a mental health checkup?
The myopic obsession of the Tea Party with destroying health care reform and wounding the president has led Republicans astray.
Advances in science and medical research and public health policies have meant that life expectancy for Australians is one of the highest in the world.
The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or '79.
Seven presidents before him - Democrats and Republicans - tried to expand health care to all Americans. President Obama got it done.
Every single dollar spent lobbying a legislator on behalf of oil and gas is a toxic dollar that undermines public health and safety laws that protect Americans. That's contamination of the political system.
And what we're doing in Ohio is we're moving from a basic manufacturing economy to one that's diversified, including energy and health care and agriculture and IT.
I don't want to suggest that controlling pharmaceutical costs is the answer to what ails the U.S. health care system. It isn't.
We are particularly interested in the mental health programs and policies that support our troops and their families before, during, and after deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
In turn, more physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers are severely limiting their practices, moving to other states, or simply not providing care.
The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax.
As grateful as we are for all the work the community health centers do, it is also important that we recognize that they cannot solve the health care crisis facing our Nation by themselves.
Small businesses pay 18 percent more than big businesses for health care, the same health care, just because they're small and they have too small a pool of risk.
That's one of the ironies of our time: Right when we're on the edge of serious improvements in health care, we're also cooking the planet.
Miriam Were has made outstanding contributions to public health in the developing world. She brings basic medical services to women and children in East Africa.
For most women, including women who want to have children, contraception is not an option; it is a basic health care necessity.
