BMJ  2006;333:1039 (18 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39031.429514.DB

News

A new direction for health?

Janice Hopkins Tanne

1 New York

Last week's victory for the Democratic party in the US mid-term elections is likely to mean changes in health care for senior citizens and uninsured people and less restriction on abortion, says Janice Hopkins Tanne

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Now that the Democratic party controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the United States, changes may come affecting many national health issues when the new Congress takes charge in January.

The changes may include prescription drugs for elderly people, coverage for the 47 million US citizens without health insurance, reproductive health and abortion rights, and stem cell research.

Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from liberal San Francisco, will become speaker of the House of Representatives. If the president, George Bush, and the vice president, Dick Cheney, were unable to serve, she would become president. It is the first time a woman has held this position.

The Democratic majority wants to change the Medicare drug plan for older people, called Plan D. Medicare is the government's health insurance plan for US citizens aged 65 years or more. Last year elderly people had to enrol in Plan D to . . . [Full text of this article]


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