Besides being an entrepreneur in online billing services for doctors, athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush is a proud first cousin of President Bush and a lifelong Republican. But on a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal, he made no bones about voting for Barack Obama. Surprisingly, he says it had little... 

Sen. Charles Grassley, investigating instances of “medical ghostwriting,” has asked drugmaker Wyeth for information about whether it helped draft papers about the company’s hormone therapy products and recruited doctors to sign articles for medical journals. Grassley, who has been on... 

Associated Press President-elect Barack Obama introduces former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services Secretary-designate in Chicago. Barack Obama was pretty serious yesterday when he said health reform needed to be “interwoven” into an economic recovery plan.... 

The uninsured and doctors’ malpractice costs are colliding in Pennsylvania. A group representing Pennsylvania hospitals has petitioned the state’s Commonwealth Court to order Gov. Ed Rendell to fund something called the Mcare Abatement, a Philadelphia Inquirer blog reports. That’s a... 

Hello, ImClone. Goodbye profits. Eli Lilly will be in the red for 2008 thanks to more than billion in fourth-quarter charges related to the drugmaker’s .5 billion deal for ImClone Systems. For this year, the company said it now expects to record a loss of .56 to .06 a share, reflecting Imclone-related... 

Massachusetts has taken some big steps to cut down on drugmakers’ gifts to doctors and to require disclosures of payments. But some folks are complaining that the state stopped too far short of the finish line. Their beef: the state proposed rules that don’t require disclosure of money companies... 

Stung by past problems with the wires that hook up implantable defibrillators to the heart, two prominent cardiologists are arguing that a new type of connector should be tested in humans before hitting the market. The doctors, Robert Hauser and Adrian Almquist of the Minneapolis Heart Institute, argue... 

Tom Daschle is expected to officially get President-elect Barack Obama’s nod as secretary of Health and Human Services today. He’ll also get a second charge overseeing a new White House Office of Health Reform, the Associated Press is reporting. The idea is to put Daschle in clear position... 

Wild Mushroom and Goat Cheese Puff Pastry Braid So finals are finally done and thankfully, I’m back in the kitchen. Thanks for all of the birthday wishes last week. And now, the holiday crunch is on. I haven’t started any of my Christmas shopping, so I really need to get on the ball. But... 

Hello everyone! We are smack dab in the crescendo of Holiday Bustle and, if you are like me, scrambling to finish year-end reports and prep and all that tralala. SO, I am extending the deadline of Hay Hay it’s Donna Day: Pesto! The new deadline is Monday, December 15 and all you wonderful folk... 

If we paid people to lose weight, would it curb the obesity epidemic? A study in the current issue of JAMA suggests the answer is yes. Researchers, led by Kevin Volpp of the University of Pennsylvania’s business and medical schools, divided 57 participants into three groups to gauge the effects... 

Rep. Henry Waxman, incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has started laying out his health-care priorities in the new role. High on the list after Congress comes back next year: more scrutiny of drug marketing. Waxman, long a critic of the drug industry, talked about his approach...