Senior Prescription Savings

It is "too soon to celebrate" reports that Medicaid spending declined by 1.4% in the first nine months of 2006 -- the first-ever decrease in spending for the program since it began in 1965 -- but "it's encouraging that there are new ideas for controlling medical costs without reverting to pre-1965 privations," a [click link for full article]

"Changing the Medicare prescription drug benefit based on inaccurate and misleading information will only hurt beneficiaries," Ken Johnson, senior vice president of PhRMA writes in a Chicago Sun-Times letter to the editor. Johnson's letter is in response to a Nov. [click link for full article]

MONTREAL (CP) - Canada will contribute $120 million to the global fight against AIDS, the Harper government announced Friday in choosing World AIDS Day to make the long-awaited funding commitment.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - In Thailand, AIDS activists planned to create the world's largest "condom chain." In Papua New Guinea, officials took blood tests to encourage voluntary HIV/AIDS testing.

HALIFAX (CP) - Nova Scotia is serious about enforcing a new total ban on smoking in all indoor public places, the province's health promotion minister said Friday.

VANCOUVER (CP) - A media mob has surged inside ahead of any patients as a private emergency clinic opens its doors in Vancouver. But staff at the Urgent Care Centre say they will be taking patients today, despite B.C.

BERLIN (AP) - World AIDS Day was marked around the globe Friday by sombre religious services, boisterous demonstrations and warnings that far more needs to be done to treat and prevent the disease in order to avert millions of additional deaths.

LONDON (AP) - A ban on smoking in movie theatres, shopping malls, pubs and other public places in England will take effect July 1, the government said Friday.

VANCOUVER (CP) - The operators of Canada's first private clinic to treat urgent conditions preferred to showcase their facility during its opening Friday and attempted to deflect answering many of the questions that still dangle around the facility.

VANCOUVER (CP) - Canada's first private clinic to treat urgent conditions has opened against a backdrop of opposition and a strong government warning the for-profit facility could be shut down if it's illegally charging for services already paid for under the public system.