Raising the Medicare age to 67 would save $125 billion, USA Today reports.

Eight states face major physician shortages ahead of healthcare reform's Medicaid expansion, according to Stateline.org.

An Institute of Medicine study finds that many Americans don't have access to dental care.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new safety guidelines for outpatient care, Kaiser Health News reports.

Rep. Allyson Schwartz testified Wednesday against a major provision of the healthcare reform law intended to help control Medicare costs. 

The so-called "IPAB-athon" wrapped up Wednesday after two consecutive days of hearings on the healthcare law's Independent Payment Advisory Board. The controversial cost-cutting panel is in Republicans' sights as they try to chip away at healthcare reform and quit playing defense on healthcare.

Among the witnesses at Wednesday's Energy and Commerce Health subcommittee hearing was Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.), one of the highest-profile Democrats to co-sponsor an IPAB repeal bill. She told Healthwatch's Julian Pecquet that she agreed to testify in part because she was concerned about President Obama's proposal to bolster the panel's authority to recommend savings for Medicare.

"I would say on behalf of myself and Democrats who care about this as well, it would be better to repeal this part of the law," she said.

Read the story here.

House Republicans made a point this week to set aside their broader objections to healthcare reform and target a specific provision that "scares the s--- out of us," Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) said Wednesday.

The House GOP's criticism of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is the most focused, sustained attack on a single piece of the health law since Republicans won the repeal of an unpopular tax reporting provision.

The push came together this week with what some members called the "IPAB-athon" — two IPAB hearings in two days, both with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Republicans have held hearings on several pieces of the reform law, but the IPAB is among their clearest targets in months.

Gingrey said he believes a bill to repeal the IPAB, sponsored by Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) will start moving toward the floor shortly after the August recess.

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Rep. Diane Black's bill would change how the healthcare reform law calculates who is eligible for government help.

Doctors are eager to participate in a private insurer's effort to better coordinate healthcare services, despite widespread skepticism toward a similar effort under the healthcare reform law.

CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield launched the effort in March. Almost 75 percent of the doctors in CareFirst's network are now participating, the company said Wednesday — the largest care-coordination effort of its kind.

The program pays primary-care doctors up to 12 percent more for efforts to coordinate patients' care and improve outcomes. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday released a guide of infection prevention recommendations for outpatient services. 

The guide comes as more and more patients have been getting their care in outpatient clinics, physician offices and community-based settings rather than inpatient hospitals over the past few decades. Such settings "have traditionally lacked infrastructure and resources to support infection prevention and surveillance activities," the CDC says.

The recommendations were crafted in collaboration with the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, an advisory body of 14 infection control experts. According to the CDC, the guide seeks to provide basic infection prevention recommendations for outpatient (ambulatory care) settings; reaffirm standard precautions as the foundation for preventing transmission of infectious agents during patient care in all healthcare settings; and provide links to full guidelines and source documents for more detailed background and recommendations.

The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee sought to turn the table on Republicans asking for "honesty" on the solvency of entitlement programs by demanding that they pay similar attention to tax revenues.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) pointed out that the panel on Wednesday was holding its fourth hearing on the solvency of Medicare or Social Security but had yet to look into the nation's tax structure. He said the Congressional Budget Office has said that the primary recent policies driving the need to increase the debt ceiling were the tax breaks of 2001 and 2003, which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.

"I'm glad we're having, by my account, the fourth hearing on this subject," Van Hollen said, "but if we're going to take a balanced approach to the long-term challenges, let's include that conversation about tax expenditures."

AARP has new ads out Wednesday urging Congress to reject Social Security benefit cuts and raise the eligibility age for Medicare.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.) says he's open to Medicare and Medicaid cuts, The Hill reports, but only in the context of "a grand bargain of more than $4 trillion that has significant revenue raisers."

Entitlement cuts floated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) would do little to rein in healthcare spending, writes The Wall Street Journal.

IPAB critics have no fewer than three columns — from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Paul Howard and Douglas Holtz-Eakin — at Politico urging repeal of the cost-cutting board.