Orshe

During the health-care debate, the impact of medical malpractice suits was controversial, with the Republicans saying it was a key part of the escalating cost issue and the Democrats saying, not so much. For its part, the CBO estimated tort-law changes would cut only about 0.5% from U.S. health-care spending.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to spend $50 million in the months leading up to the fall elections in a continuing push against the health-overhaul legislation, the WSJ reports.

There’s been plenty of hand-waving in Washington about bringing generic versions of biotech drugs to market in this country. But rather than wait for all that to get worked out, Teva, the Israeli generics giant, went ahead and ran clinical trials on a biotech drug that’s a whole lot like Amgen’s Neupogen, a $900 million drug used to stimulate the growth of white blood cells.

California’s state Supreme Court threw out a law that limits how much medical marijuana patients can possess. Here’s the court’s ruling, which was filed yesterday.

The ruling is noteworthy in part because California already had some of the most permissive medical marijuana rules in the country; as we noted recently, the backers of New Jersey’s new medical marijuana law were eager to point out that the drug would be more tightly regulated in their state than in California.

Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator and a prolific author of letters, has written to more than 30 hospitals to ask about their experiences — including “complications,” “errors” and “problems” — with health IT systems.

The letters follow a barrage Grassley sent out last fall to some of the companies that sell electronic systems to hospitals and doctors, asking some similar questions.

Walgreens is threatening to stop filling Medicaid prescriptions at 64 of its 121 pharmacies in Washington state because of state cuts in payments.

Walgreens, the biggest drug-store chain in the country, has been down this road before. It threatened to pull out of Medicaid programs last year before settlements were reached in Delaware and in an earlier dust-up in Washington state.

Paying donors of tissue or organs can help sick people by driving up supply. But creating a market for human parts is an ethically slippery proposition.

For a while now, the FDA and other regulators have been looking at safety risks associated with a few drugs patients sometimes take before getting MRI scans.

You don’t see much bipartisanship on Capitol Hill these days, or many duets in the Senate. But Democrat Byron Dorgan and Republican John McCain teamed up to put on a show for colleagues and lucky C-Span viewers this afternoon with their routine pushing drug re-importation.

Before you read this post, you might want to take a look at this live feed of a frozen brain being sliced like lunch meat.