Free Republic

The rise of nonphysician providers will enable more team care. Skilled health aides will monitor patients at home and alert a doctor if certain medical parameters decline. Nurses will provide wound care to diabetic patients, adjust medications like blood thinners and provide the initial management of chemotherapy side effects for cancer patients. Pharmacists will provide more counseling and urgent care. Physicians will remain essential to the proper diagnosis and treatment of disease, but will be backed up by teams who will help manage the more routine features of chronic illness.

President Barack Obama again urged Congress to pass his jobs plan, saying most millionaires “are willing to step up” and pay higher taxes to support it.

WASHINGTON — Politicians and business groups often blame excessive regulation and fear of higher taxes for tepid hiring in the economy. However, little evidence of that emerged when McClatchy canvassed a random sample of small business owners across the nation. "Government regulations are not 'choking' our business, the hospitality business," Bernard Wolfson, the president of Hospitality Operations in Miami, told The Miami Herald. "In order to do business in today's environment, government regulations are necessary and we must deal with them. The health and safety of our guests depend on regulations. It is the government regulations that help keep things...

New applications for unemployment compensation fell by 12,000 last week to 409,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Initial claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 421,000 from an original reading of 417,000. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected new requests for jobless benefits to drop to 405,000 in the week of Aug. 27 on a seasonally adjusted basis.