Committee co-chairmen Patty Murray and Jeb Hensarling announced Tuesday that Mark Prater will serve as the panel’s staff director.

The Republican members of the debt supercommittee met for the first time Tuesday in Washington.

U.S. researchers must have known they were violating ethical standards when they infected hundreds of Guatemalan prisoners with sexually transmitted diseases in the 1940s, Reuters reports.

Regulators this week start reviewing health premium increases of 10 percent or more, The Wall Street Journal reminds us.

Healthcare fraud prosecutions are on track to rise 85 percent over last year, USA Today reports.

Most Americans who get coverage through their employers aren't willing to sacrifice benefits for lower costs, reports Kaiser Health News.

One of the nation's largest integrated care systems may have put thousands of patients at risk of getting dangerous bloodborne infections including hepatitis and HIV over a five-year period.

The Dean Clinic in Madison, Wis., announced Monday that it is contacting 2,345 patients who may have been put at risk during patient visits. The clinic said in a statement that a former employee "inappropriately" used insulin demonstration pens and finger stick devices during patient training between 2006 and 2011.

The developing scandal potentially weakens a close ally of the Obama administration on healthcare reform. The Dean Clinic has been a longtime proponent of the doctor-hospital collaboratives championed by the healthcare law, and CEO Craig Samitt addressed an Accountable Care Organization panel organized by the Medicare agency in June.

"Dean Clinic is committed to supporting our patients," Samitt said in a statement Monday. "There is nothing more important to us than the health, well-being and safety of the people we serve. Our goal is to ensure that those who may have been affected by the inappropriate use are promptly informed, tested and supported."

The clinic said the problem was discovered during a recent internal review and that state and local health officials have been informed.

A controversial piece of the healthcare reform law is beginning to save consumers money but could also give them fewer plans to choose from, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Monday.

The GAO interviewed insurance companies and regulators about the early impact of a provision that governs how insurance companies spend their money. It requires plans to spend 80 or 85 percent of their premiums on medical costs — a calculation known as the medical loss ratio (MLR). Companies that miss the minimum MLR will have to pay rebates to their customers.

According to GAO, some insurers are decreasing premiums or leaving their rates unchanged in order to comply with the MLR requirements. Three companies told GAO that premiums will either fall next year or increase by a smaller amount than they would have without the MLR.

The changes to premiums are coming in conjunction with cuts to brokers' premiums, GAO found. Insurance agents and brokers have warned repeatedly that the MLR will hurt them. And while consumer advocates have argued that the effects are overstated, the GAO report seems to support agents' claims.

A new medical research body created by the healthcare reform law should not consider the cost of treatments when evaluating them, the nation's largest physician lobby argues.

The American Medical Association has invited other groups to sign on to a comment letter regarding the type of research that should be conducted under the law's Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The independent nonprofit began seeking public input last month, and the AMA is concerned about its proposal to "investigate … optimizing outcomes while addressing burden to individuals, resources, and other stakeholder perspectives."

Healthcare providers such as doctors and hospitals want more federal support for research but worry that including cost in the equation will open the door to rationing down the line.

People seem to be forgetting what the healthcare reform law does, according to a poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

A leading consumer-advocacy group wants the government to allow generic drugmakers to update their products’ warning labels when new risks are discovered without having to first go through the time-consuming federal bureaucracy.

Public Citizen filed a petition Monday with the Food and Drug Administration urging regulators to allow generic drugmakers to update warnings and precautions on product labels, just as brand-name drugmakers can. The discrepancy came into public view in June when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that patients harmed by inadequate warnings on generic drugs cannot sue for damages, while people who take brand-name versions of the same drugs can — an “absurd consequence” of current law, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

“The action we are requesting would bring FDA regulation in line with the realities of the pharmaceutical market and help to ensure that drug labeling provides adequate warnings to patients based on information that comes to light after the drug is approved for marketing,” Allison Zieve, director of the Public Citizen Litigation Group, said in a statement. Generic drugs account for a majority of all prescriptions, and about 90 percent of prescriptions for which a generic version exists.

The petition also urges the FDA to reiterate generic drugmakers’ obligation to inform the FDA whenever a manufacturer becomes aware of information suggesting an association between its product and a hazard not adequately disclosed on the labeling, Public Citizen said.

The nursing-home industry is launching a multimillion-dollar ad buy and advocacy campaign this week in an effort to prevent more Medicare and Medicaid cuts once Congress comes back to Washington.

The industry says previous Medicare and Medicaid cuts have already hampered nursing homes' ability to stay fully staffed and provide top-quality care. Further reductions — including cuts from the deficit-cutting supercommittee — would be devastating, industry groups argue.

Two industry groups are launching a TV ad campaign in eight states: Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia and Washington. The Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care and the American Health Care Association will also conduct a broader lobbying campaign beyond those states.

“This nationwide campaign aims to inform our lawmakers that additional cuts to skilled nursing and assisted living threaten access to quality care needed by America’s seniors and individuals with disabilities," said Mark Parkinson, president of the American Health Care Association. "It will also demonstrate that our sector is part of the solution to both rising health care costs and the need for local job creation.”

According to data recently released by Avalere Health, nursing homes have absorbed federal payment cuts in just the past two years that will add up to $128 billion over the next decade.

The text of the TV spot is below: