HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday appointed Cindy Mann, director of Georgetown University"s Center for Children and Families, to head the Center for Medicaid and State Operations, a division of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, BNA reports. Mann is a former director of the Family and Children"s Health Programs at CMSO from 1999 to 2001. Sebelius said Mann has been "instrumental in recent efforts to expand health care coverage in our country." She added that Mann"s "knowledge of health care issues and management experience will be a great asset to CMSO and to the millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid" (BNA, 6/1).
Cancer researchers are turning to mathematical models to help answer important clinical questions, and a new paper in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, illustrates how the technique may answer questions about Herceptin resistance. Sofia Merajver, M.D., Ph.D., scientific director of the Breast Oncology Program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, and a senior editorial board member of Cancer Research, said the potential of mathematical oncology is nothing short of revolutionary. These landmark papers now have a potential forum in the Mathematical Oncology section of Cancer Research, whose wide readership will help the new results reach the clinic. 
"The current debate over government funding for abortion in the health care plan is a reminder of how we have failed poor women," Frances Kissling writes in a Salon opinion piece. According to Kissling, the 32-year-old Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion services, has played a large role in denying impoverished women access to the procedure. "Restoring those funds has not been a top priority for pro-choice advocates, who sadly concluded that because the public does not care about poor women and is actually hostile to poor women who have sex and become pregnant, it would be futile to put too much capital into reversing Hyde," Kissling writes.However, "we have an opportunity to make amends" by reversing the Hyde Amendment and restoring federal funding for abortion services, according to Kissling. 
Senate Finance Committee members negotiating a sweeping health care reform package are close to dropping a requirement that employers provide health insurance for employees as well as a government-run public insurance plan to forge a compromise, The Associated Press reports. "After weeks of secretive talks, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama"s support for such a plan, officials said.
As they worked to move health care reform legislation through the Energy and Commerce Committee, House Democrats said they were close to a compromise with fiscally conservative Democrats, a group that so far has been a roadblock, The Hill reports. "Reps. (Henry) Waxman (D-Calif.) and Mike Ross (D-Ark.) emerged from more than three hours of negotiations late Monday to say that the Blue Dogs were weighing an offer from Waxman. Blue Dogs have asked Waxman to get a cost estimate for the bill. "The chairman has made an offer," said Ross, who is the lead Blue Dog on healthcare reform. "We have asked that he get a [Congressional Budget Office] score, that is, find out how much it would cost. We"re going to review it and see if it"s something we can accept.