A broad coalition of business and consumer groups is requesting that the Senate schedule a vote on food-safety legislation "at the soonest possible date."

Twenty-two organizations representing the food industry, consumers and public health advocates wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week to urge action on the bill. On Monday five of the signing groups held a joint press conference at the Grocery Manufacturers Association to urge passage of "strong food-safety legislation [that] will reduce the risk of contamination and thereby better protect public health and safety." 

The stalled legislation would give the Food and Drug Administration power to recall tainted food, quarantine geographical areas and access food producers’ records. Similar legislation passed the House in July 2009.

The Senate Health Committee voted out the Senate version November, and unveiled a bipartisan manager's amendment at the beginning of the August recess. As a result, advocates were hoping for quick and easy passage of the legislation this month, but Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is objecting on the grounds that the bill strengthens already inefficient government agencies and isn't paid for over the long term.

A big week for insurance reformers: Healthcare reform might not be shaping up to be the deciding issue of November's midterms, but the changes taking effect this week will be sure to generate some buzz on Capitol Hill, as the parties continue to spar over the value of the new law. 

A central feature of the bill was the so-called "patients bill of rights," including provisions:

• prohibiting insurers from setting lifetime limits on coverage,

• allowing young adults to stay on their parents' plans up to age 26,

• banning insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions,

• preventing insurers from dropping coverage after patients get sick, and 

• requiring plans to cover comprehensive preventive services.

Those five provisions take effect Wednesday. http://bit.ly/ce9R5C

Along those lines… Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Sunday that Democrats should embrace the health reform law, rather than fleeing from it. 

“Some, particularly House members in districts that, you know, can often get gerrymandered and become tough districts are distancing themselves from the health care bill,” Kaine said on CNN's “State of The Union." “I don't tell people how to run their races, but I've been on a ballot seven times and won seven races, and in my experience, you ought to be proud of what you're doing and promote the accomplishments." http://bit.ly/brFEvA

Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) isn't on board: "When President Obama and Nancy Pelosi pressured Chet Edwards, Chet stood up to them and voted no against their trillion dollar health care bill," says a newly launched Edwards campaign ad. http://nyti.ms/dAT34T  

And neither is Mike Huckabee… The former Alabama governor said the patient's bill of rights is unfair to insurance companies.

"How would you like to be able to call your insurance agent for your car and say, 'I want you to insure my car,'" Huckabee told an audience at the Value Voters Summit in Washington Friday. "'Well, tell me about your car.' 'Well, it was a pretty nice vehicle until my sixteen year-old boy wrecked it yesterday.'

"Now how much would a policy cost if it covered everything? About as much as it's gonna cost for health care in this country."

Repeal, or replace, or what? Republicans opposing the health reform law might soon be faced with the dilemma of specifying their policy alternatives.

"During the health care debate there was just as much division within Republicans as there was between the parties," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a GOP strategist and former head of the CBO, told the Associated Press. "It will be more visible now that Republicans may be in charge of one house because those divisions will come to the surface." http://bit.ly/cbvKY9

Why seek a solution if you don't see a problem? Capitol Hill leaders have largely ignored the latest Census numbers revealing that one in seven Americans lives in poverty, while one is six lacks health insurance. The reason?

"The reluctance of political leaders on both sides of the aisle to directly confront the fact that growing numbers of Americans are slipping into poverty reflects a stubborn reality about the poor: They are not much of a political constituency," writes The Washington Post's Michael Fletcher. http://bit.ly/cWvTsb

Death panels, revived: Christine O'Donnell, the GOP contender to replace former Sen. Joe Biden (D) in Delaware, warns that Democrats want to ration care to the elderly. 

"We've watched the tentacles of big government weasel their way into every part of our lives," O'Donnell told a conservative audience at the Values Voters Summit in Washington Friday. 

"Bureaucrats and politicians in Washington think they should decide what kind of light bulbs we use, what kind of toilets we flush, what kind of car we drive. … They even want unelected panels of bureaucrats to decide who gets what life-saving medical care and who is just too old or it's too expensive to be worth saving."

Christine O'Donnell, the Tea-Party Republican vying to fill Joe Biden's Senate seat in Delaware, jumped head-first into the thorny healthcare debate.

The meeting comes after Franken held a summit in Minnesota last month with medical device manufacturers to hear their concerns.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, vowed Friday to launch an investigation into the skyrocketing cost of long-term health insurance.

"I want to see the justification from the insurance companies," Pallone said in a statement. "I also want to see how prevalent the increases are."

The comments are a direct response to a recent report in a local New Jersey paper — the Ashbury Park Press — that state insurance regulators this year have approved premium hikes as high as 35 percent for long-term care policyholders in the state.

Such plans generally cover services for patients who can't perform day-to-day activities, like eating and bathing, on their own. 

"The whole idea of insurance is to make care affordable," Pallone said, "and long-term care can be a costly burden for families with loved ones in need of nursing care. They shouldn't be forced into bankruptcy to provide that care." 

The New Jersey Democrat was author of a provision of the new health reform law that creates a new model of long-term care insurance, focusing on home- and community-based care.

House Ways and Means Republicans on Friday renewed their request for a hearing with Don Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Their first request was on July 14.

In a letter to Committee Chair Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), the 15 Republicans on the panel reminded Levin that on July 22 the chairman had indicated a willingness to have Berwick before the committee "after [he] has been in office for a period of time." President Obama installed Berwick by recess appointment in early July.

Berwick is controversial because of his past statements that the government should "ration with our eyes open." Republicans have picked up on those statements and the healthcare reform law's cuts in Medicare payments to insurance plans and providers to argue that Berwick would curtail seniors' benefits.

"We are eager to hear his plans for CMS," the letter states, "because Medicare's own actuaries predict that the one-half trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare in the recently enacted health law could result in providers no longer treating seniors, jeopardizing their access to care."

Senate Finance Republicans Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) sent a letter to Berwick himself on Monday asking him to request a hearing with their panel. 

West Virginia's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine contained excess amounts of combustible coal dust when an explosion ripped through it with deadly results in April, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) revealed Friday.

Kevin Stricklin, MSHA's head of coal mine safety, told reporters that 1,423 samples taken from the Massey-owned mine after the blast — representing roughly 80 percent of all samples taken — were out of compliance with MSHA coal dust standards.  

Under current rules, mine operators are required to dilute coal dust through a process known as rock dusting (which usually means dousing mine walls with limestone dust). Rock dusting should occur throughout the day, to make the highly combustible coal dust inert in case of an explosion.  

Some Massey miners, however, have said the company discouraged frequent rock dusting, which distracted workers from what was supposed to be their central focus: mining coal. 

Former Massey miner Chuck Nelson, for instance, said rock dusting was commonly done only at the end of the shift — or after miners were warned that safety inspectors were on site.

"They call and tell us to start hanging our curtains, start cleaning the coal dust up, start rock-dusting the ribs — get everything right because he’s on his way in there," Nelson said in an interview from his West Virginia home earlier in the year. "But as soon as they’re on their way outside — before they get outside — these line curtains are jerked down again. They’re back to doing the same old business as usual."

The official cause of April's UBB disaster, which killed 29 miners, has yet to be identified. But based on the sheer size of the blast, mine safety experts suspect that ignited methane, combined with the presence of coal dust, is the culprit.

Stricklin said Friday that more samples than 80 percent would likely have failed MSHA's tests just before the blast, which would have burned up much of the coal dust.

The details about the UBB's non-compliance with MSHA's coal dust standards were first reported Thursday by The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr.

The funds include loan repayments for health professionals and health career opportunity programs for disadvantaged students.