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NBC Nightly News (3/5, story 3, 2:50, Todd) reported that "Obama began his effort to reform the massive and complicated healthcare system, tying it to the economic crisis." Obama said, "It's one of the greatest threats not just to the well-being of our families and the prosperity of our businesses, but to the very foundation of our economy. And that's the exploding costs of healthcare in America today." NBC went on to report that "drawing on a lesson from Hillary Clinton's failed attempt to deal with healthcare in the early '90s, which was criticized for its secrecy...Obama opened up the process, inviting doctors, patients, business and labor leaders, even live streaming discussion groups on a new website, healthreform.gov." The CBS Evening News (3/5, story 6, 2:50, Couric) noted that the President contended "you can't fix the economy without fixing the healthccare system," adding (Reid) that he "boldly predicted quick success where so many before him have failed." Obama was shown saying, "Our goal will be to enact comprehensive healthcare reform by the end of this year." ABC World News (3/5, story 3, 2:30, Gibson) also covered the story.

The Wall Street Journal (3/6, Meckler) reports, "The sessions, which were open to the press and shown live on C-Span and the Internet, were in contrast to the approach" under Clinton, whose plan "was developed behind closed doors." Obama "appears to have learned another lesson from the Clinton administration's failed attempt, as shown by his promise that people who like their existing insurance plan would be able to keep it. One concern some had with the Clinton plan was that people might have to change their existing plans." The President is also "working to appeal to those who already have insurance by emphasizing that their costs would fall under his plan."

AFP (3/6, Collinson) also reports that "under the White House healthcare plan, which will likely be amended by lawmakers in final legislation, Americans who have health insurance and want to keep it can do so, though the administration says costs will lower." The plan would also "seek to lower the cost of prescription drugs, partly through relaxing rules on the import of medicines from other developed nations, and stop pharmaceutical giants blocking production of generic treatments."

According to the New York Times (3/6, A14, Pear, Stolberg), Obama "indicated for the first time that he was open to compromise on details of the proposal he put forth in the 2008 campaign. ... As a candidate, Mr. Obama said he would establish a public insurance program to compete with private insurers and would require employers to contribute to the cost of coverage for their employees or to the cost of the public plan. Insurers oppose the idea of a new public plan." The Times adds that "since the election, Mr. Obama has not restated the details of his campaign proposal, and he indicated Thursday that he would be pragmatic."

USA Today (3/6, Wolf) reports that "White House session...brought disparate factions together," and "Obama elicited promises of cooperation from lawmakers and stakeholders who in the past have been at loggerheads over how to fix the system. He and others emphasized areas of agreement and said they would work amicably on their differences." The summit "was notable for bringing interest groups together under one roof." USA Today adds that "insurers played the leading role in killing a healthcare overhaul in 1994, a point Obama noted."

The AP (3/6, Alonso-Zaldivar) reports, "The difference this time, Obama says, is that healthcare costs have become unsustainable, particularly in a sinking economy. The US spends $2.4 trillion a year on healthcare. Obama's goal is health coverage for everyone." The Washington Post (3/6, A2, Connolly), the Chicago Tribune (3/6, Levey), The Hill (3/6, Young), the Christian Science Monitor (3/6, Marks), the Financial Times (3/6, A1, Ward), Bloomberg News (3/6, Goldstein), UPI (3/6) and the UK's Guardian (3/6) also cover the summit.

Congressional Quarterly (8/7/08, Parnass) reported, "Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) has introduced legislation (HR 6800) that would attempt to lower drugs costs by replacing the current prescription drug plan created by the 2003 Medicare overhaul law." The bill contains provisions to "allow patients to purchase drugs from an approved list of foreign countries, require Medicare to use its purchasing power to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry, and impose limits on prices drug companies can charge if a drug's research and development was financed by taxpayers." The bill also calls "for no premiums, co-pays, or deductibles for drugs required by Medicare beneficiaries."

The New York Times (8/5/08, C5, Abelson) reports that "[m]illions of Americans with chronic disease like diabetes or high blood pressure are not getting adequate treatment, because they are among the nation's growing ranks of uninsured," according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. This study is "the first detailed look at the health of the uninsured," and it "estimates that about one of every three working-age adults without insurance in the United States has received a diagnosis of a chronic illness. Many of these people are forgoing doctors' visits, or relying on emergency rooms for their medical care," the data indicated. For the study, lead author Andrew P. Wilper, M.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues, analyzed "government health surveys of adults ages 18 to 64 years old."

The researchers found that "23 percent hadn't seen a health provider in the last year, compared with six percent of the chronically ill who had insurance," Bloomberg (8/5/08, Blum) adds. The authors pointed out that some of these patients "may face early disability and death for lack of care," a result which is "at odds with statements by policy makers who argue [that] the 'predicament of uninsured persons is often voluntary and rarely consequential.'" Notably, uninsured people "who were chronically ill were six times more likely to list emergency [departments] as where they went regularly for care."

Focusing on some the study's details, HealthDay (8/4/08, Gardner) reported that the researchers used "data from interviews with almost 12,500 people...who had participated in the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey." After analyzing the data, "the authors conclude[d] that an estimated 11.4 million working-age Americans with at least one of seven chronic medical conditions do not have health insurance." This number "included 16.1 percent of the 7.8 million people with cardiovascular disease, 15.5 percent of the 38.2 million people with hypertension, and 16.6 percent of the 8.5 million people with diabetes." The study also examined data on people with "asthma, high cholesterol, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or a previous diagnosis of cancer."