Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor joined Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on Wednesday morning to announce a new push for Alzheimer's research that aims to cure the disease by 2020.

The campaign — called USAgainstAlzheimer's — named as its first goal the passage of the Alzheimer's Breakthrough Act, which would allocate $2 billion for research by the National Institutes of Health. The Senate version has 45 co-sponsors.

"This [disease] is a grave and growing challenge, especially in its burden on families and cost to the healthcare system," said O'Connor, whose husband died of Alzheimer's in 2009. "That is why we need a focused national strategic response. It can't just be business as usual."

Research by the independent Alzheimer's Study Group, of which O'Connor was a part, found that of the NIH’s annual $31.2 billion budget, about $527 million, or just over 1 percent, was used for Alzheimer's research last year.

By comparison, AIDS researchers at the NIH received more than $3 billion.

The Alzheimer's Association, meanwhile, estimates $172 billion is spent annually on patient care, or 400 times the amount spent on research.

Individual Medicaid payments also tend to be much higher for beneficiaries with Alzheimer's.

"This is surely an issue that ought to bring us all together," said Collins, chairwoman of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease, on Wednesday. "It should be one of the priorities of the lame-duck Congress."

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, was unable to attend the event at the last minute.

USAgainstAlzheimer's Board Chairman George Vradenburg named Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Reps. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) as among a growing group of lawmakers interested in Alzheimer's issues.

"Many are coming forward because they themselves have lost family members," said Vradenburg. "We see legislators of every ideological stripe wanting to bring focus to this issue, and as they work together for solutions, we will get something even better."

A poll commissioned by USAgainstAlzheimer's revealed that 77 percent of Americans have a connection to someone with the disease, and six in 10 support increased funding for research.

"The public feels very well-informed about this issue," said Vradenburg. "It's no longer about raising awareness. We want action."

Alzheimer's, which is the sixth leading cause of death among Americans, slowly destroys memory and cognitive skills. The number of diagnoses is expected to nearly triple in the next decade.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) is all over the place when it comes to his telling of the administration's position on the public insurance option. 

In his soon-to-be-released book "Getting it Done," Daschle writes that several "working assumptions" accompanied the administration's $155 billion deal with the hospitals in July 2009, the Wonk Room's Igor Volsky noted this week.

“One was that the Senate would aim for health coverage of at least 94 percent of Americans,” Daschle writes. “The other was that it would contain no public health plan.”

That would run counter to the many statements from the White House, which insisted that President Obama was pushing hard for the public option long after July.

In an interview Tuesday with Volsky, Daschle was already walking back the claims he made in his book.

"I don’t think it was taken off the table completely. It was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance [lobby], and others," Daschle said. 

"They wanted to keep those stakeholders in the room, and this was the price some thought they had to pay." 

The medical device lobby on Wednesday went after the intermediary companies that purchase their products on behalf of hospitals.

In a new report, the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA) is charging that Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) "fail to deliver" in their primary role: bringing down costs for hospitals.

“It is painfully clear that while hospitals and providers are trying to improve care and reduce costs for patients, the supplier-funded GPO model is costing the healthcare system billions,” MDMA CEO Mark Leahey said in a statement. “This study proves that GPOs not only fail to bend the cost curve for healthcare down, they are preventing hospitals and patients from getting the best products at the best prices."

The new MDMA study — conducted by researchers at the Brookings Institution and Georgetown University — found that repealing a 24-year-old anti-kickback exemption allowing GPOs to accept fees from device makers would cut federal health spending by $11.5 billion each year.

“This study bolsters our argument that Congress must pass legislation that will restore the illegality of kickbacks between suppliers and GPOs,” Leahey said.

GPOs are designed to cut costs by negotiating bulk prices with device companies on behalf of large groups of hospitals, nursing homes and other providers. But critics contend the anti-kickback exemption has created cozy relations — both between GPOs and hospitals and GPOs and device makers — that cut smaller companies out of the process at the expense of patients' access to treatments.

The issue hasn't been overlooked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Citing a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said there's no evidence GPOs are saving taxpayers anything.

"Whether Group Purchasing Organizations are able to help save money on medical supply costs, or not, impacts federal healthcare spending," Grassley said. "There’s no data with which to independently verify the effect, one way or another, and that’s a shortcoming in the current system."

The GPO lobby was quick to fight back. Curtis Rooney, president and CEO of the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association, said the GAO report "clearly demonstrates" that GPO efforts have created "increased transparency and low administrative fees in healthcare contracting."

“GAO and academic research have documented the significant cost savings and the wide range of valuable services that GPOs provide to hospitals, which is why virtually all American hospitals voluntarily contract with GPOs,” he said.

Lining up in the fight against Alzheimer's: Some powerful voices in Washington are teaming up with top scientists in the battle against Alzheimer's disease.

Some of those figures will gather in Washington Wednesday morning to announce the creation of a new advocacy group — USAgainstAlzheimer's — whose stated goal is to eliminate Alzheimer's within a decade.

In a release, the group lays out the problem:

"Today, one in eight people over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s, and one in two people over 85 is stricken.  Between now and 2020, over $2 trillion will be spent caring for those with the disease and less than $5 billion will be invested by NIH in stopping this disease."

The group says it will "give a political voice to the American people who can no longer tolerate the lack of focus and resources being devoted to eradicating this disease."

Appearing at Charlie Palmer's for Wednesday's unveiling will be Sandra Day O’Connor, retired Supreme Court Justice; Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Susan Collins (R-Me.); Stanley Prusiner, Nobel Prize-winning director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco; and Ken Dychtwald, head of Age Wave.

But are those McDonald's plans worth saving? That's the question The New York Times' David Leonhardt asks this week, after the fast food giant had threatened to drop its "mini-med" coverage for about 30,000 workers.

Many of those plans, he notes, cap coverage at $2,000. After that, workers are on their own to pay their medical expenses. 

"Does this insurance plan sound like part of the solution for the country’s health care system — or part of the problem?" Leonhardt asks.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday slammed the Democrats over reports that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are disappearing in Iowa.

"Seniors face fewer choices, fewer benefits and higher costs because of the partisan health care overhaul and previous changes to the Medicare program under Democratic leadership," Grassley said in a statement. 

The comment comes in response to a Tuesday report in the Des Moines Register indicating that roughly 21,000 seniors enrolled in MA will have to find new coverage next year because companies are discontinuing some of their plans.

Though the state-specific figure is new, the idea that some MA plans won't be offered next year is not. 

Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) projected that about 5 percent of seniors in stand-alone MA plans would need to find new coverage because their current plans aren't renewing their contracts with the agency — largely the result of a 2008 law that put new restrictions on a particular type of MA plan dubbed private fee for service.

Affected seniors will have the choice of enrolling in another MA plan or shifting into traditional Medicare. Of the nearly 1 million seniors who fall into this category nationwide, about 2,300 will be forced into traditional Medicare because another MA option is not available, CMS estimated. Overall, MA enrollment is expected to increase by 5 percent next year.

Republicans have pounced on such reports, accusing the administration of walking back its vow that consumers, if they like their current plans, can keep them.

"The facts," Grassley said, "are indisputable."

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius this week defended the Democrats' policies, arguing that the MA plans folding next year are doing so independent of the new health reform law. 

"Any company that pulled out of the Medicare Advantage plan this year, my guess is that they had business plans to do that whether or not the president signed this law in March of 2010," she said.

Defending its turf, the American Medical Association (AMA) on Tuesday pushed back against a new report recommending a broader role for nurses in provider settings.

"A physician-led team approach to care — with each member of the team playing the role they are educated and trained to play — helps ensure patients get high-quality care and value for their healthcare spending," Rebecca Patchin, AMA board member, said in a statement. 

"Nurses are critical to the healthcare team, but there is no substitute for education and training."

Tuesday's nursing report — a joint effort of the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — recommended that longer training and broader participation among nurses would go a long way toward improving care and cutting costs. 

"Transforming the nursing profession is a crucial element to achieving the nation's vision of an effective, affordable healthcare system that is accessible and responsive to all," Linda Burnes Bolten, chief nursing officer at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said in a statement.

But AMA, the largest physician lobby in Washington, warned that a focus on nurses at the neglect of doctors wouldn't solve the nation's access problems.

"With a shortage of both nurses and physicians," Patchin said, "increasing the responsibility of nurses is not the answer to the physician shortage."

Energy and Commerce Republicans Joe Barton (Texas), John Shimkus (Ill.) and Michael Burgess (Texas) wrote to the 50 state governors and D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty on Tuesday requesting data on how they'll go about implementing the healthcare reform law.

Their letter gives the local leaders two weeks to answer nine questions concerning such as issues as the costs of the Medicaid expansion, the effect of cuts to safety net hospitals payments and how the states will pay for it all.

"Much of the responsibility for – and the cost of – implementing these new provisions will fall to the states," the lawmakers write. "Given the important role states play in implementing the legislation and the difficult budgetary situation in many states, Congress must understand the impact of the legislation on each state’s budget and what steps each state will take in order to finance these additional outlays. However, we know the best experts on this issue are the states themselves, and thus, we are requesting the assistance of all 50 states and the District of Columbia in order to better understand how this legislation will affect state budgets over the next several years."

The anti-abortion group Americans United for Life announced Tuesday that it is spending $600,000 to target 12 Democrats in battleground districts in the closing weeks before the mid-term elections.

AUL Action, AUL's legislative action arm, has launched a "Life Counts" campaign combining online grassroots organizing, a radio ad campaign and email blasts to 12 districts. The campaign targets Democrats who voted for the health reform bill, which AUL believes allows taxpayer-funded abortions because it provides subsidies for the purchase of health plans that offer the procedure even if the subsidies can't be used to buy the abortion coverage itself.

"Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to taxpayer-funded abortion," AUL Action President and CEO Charmaine Yoest said in a statement Tuesday. "Candidates who supported the largest expansion of federal funding of abortion ever are going to find out that in this election, Life Counts."

Ads began airing in six Democratic-held districts on Monday. The targets: Reps. Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), Alan Grayson (Fla.), Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.), John Salazar (Col.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.). The ads also target Arkansas state Sen. Joyce Elliott, who is running to take over the seat being vacated by Rep. Vic Snyder.

AUL Action started airing ads in six other districts last month. The targets: Reps. Baron Hill (Ind.), Chris Carney (Pa.), John Boccieri (Ohio), Tom Perriello (Va.), John Spratt (S.C.) and Bob Etheridge (N.C.).

A group of top healthcare experts on Tuesday urged a greater role for nurses as the country grapples with ways to improve its troubled healthcare system.

The sheer number of nurses, combined with their direct proximity to patients, makes them particularly suited to advance strategies for improving care and saving money, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) committee on the Future of Nursing, a collaboration with the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

"Transforming the nursing profession is a crucial element to achieving the nation's vision of an effective, affordable health care system that is accessible and responsive to all," Linda Burnes Bolten, the committee vice chair and chief nursing officer at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said in a statement.

Among the committee's recommendations:

• Nurses should be freed to use their training to the fullest extent. 

"A variety of historical, regulatory, and policy barriers have limited nurses’ ability to generate widespread transformation," the report reads. "Regulatory barriers are particularly problematic." 

• Medical education systems should be improved to encourage nurses to advance their training. 

"One step in realizing this goal is for a greater number of nurses to enter the workforce with a baccalaureate degree or progress to this degree early in their career," the committee suggests. "Moreover, to alleviate shortages of nurse faculty, primary care providers, and researchers, a cadre of qualified nurses needs to be ready to advance to the master’s and doctoral levels."

•  Nurses should position themselves as "full partners," along with doctors and other providers, in the effort to improve the healthcare system. 

"Being a full partner involves taking responsibility for identifying problems and areas of waste, devising and implementing a plan for improvement, tracking improvement over time, and making necessary adjustments to realize established goals," the report notes.

• Improving the system will require better data collection.

"Planning for fundamental, wide-ranging changes in the education and deployment of the nursing workforce will require comprehensive data on the numbers and types of nurses currently available and required to meet future needs," the authors write.

The recommendations, said committee chair Donna Shalala, former head of the Health and Human Services Department, "provide a strong foundation for the development of a nursing work force whose members are well-educated and prepared to practice to the fullest extent of their training, meet the current and future needs of patients, and act as full partners in leading advances in the nation's health care system."   

Two statistics make nurses singularly qualified to advance the discussion about healthcare improvement, the committee said: Their numbers (more than 3 million) make them the largest segment of the healthcare workforce. And they spend more time caring directly for patients than any other group. 

The Future of Nursing committee has scheduled a two-day national conference beginning Nov. 30 to examine ways to implement the recommendations found in the report.